


A Beginner's Guide to Mind Reading

by loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, For Science!, Jealous Lance (Voltron), Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt Friendship, M/M, Mind Reading, Mindless plot with some smut, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, Obtuse Pidge, Pidge and Keith are total snark buddies, Unresolved Sexual Tension, You can't convince me otherwise, aaaaaaaaaangst, because he's too sexy for his own good, hunk is a big ol' cinnamon roll, keith is a filthy filthy pervert, lance is a hot cuban boi, lots of objectifying Shiro, love triangles can burn in hell, misunderstandings galore, no love triangles, pidge has long hair, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-06-23 05:26:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 106,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15599280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS/pseuds/loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS
Summary: A recon mission gone wrong ends with Pidge being able to read minds.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> takes place like post season 3/4ish (but no lotor) in the hella future, and canon divergent and AU-ish. this barely there plot is just so I can write some stupid pervy shit
> 
> don't take this story seriously because i really don't lmao

Pidge was 100% fed up with being on Planet Qiolea and their band of quiznaking jackass diplomats.

There was just something entirely too shifty about the Qiolean diplomats and their finicky king, who not only placed restrictions on their travels and tour of the castle to one general area, but also fielded off questions he deemed too invasive of their privacy.

That in and of itself was suspect, especially considering they were in negotiations with Allura to pool their resources and possibly join the Voltron alliance to fight against Galra forces that still existed on many planets. The war may have been won, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still insurgents littering the universe, and the remaining Galra forces had made it their mission to bring their empire back to its former glory. And yet, the Qioleans had been difficult throughout the entire talks, shutting down most things that Allura had been trying to say.

“We just don’t want any of our men to become… casualties of war.” King Qylt gave a pointed look at Shiro, or more specifically, Shiro’s arm and then his face. “I’m sure you understand.”

Anyone who didn’t know Shiro wouldn’t be able to recognise the brief look of murder that snapped through his gaze before he rectified it, but Pidge had been looking for it, and she had to suppress her own desire to yell at the king. These noble Qioleans were extremely annoying, and the king’s selfish and callous dismissal was certainly setting the precedent for what kind of reception they’d gotten while staying here.

“Our Black Paladin actually was held prisoner by the Galra and experimented on mercilessly. What you see is an unprovoked result of allowing the Galra to roam free in the universe.”

That made some of the diplomats look away in shame and slight embarrassment at their king’s rude choice of words without knowing the full situation. At least some of them seemed more decent. But the king’s bored look remained on his indifferent face, and he preened at the feathers on his arm, stubborn and unwilling to admit his wrong.

What an ass.

Pidge started to scowl, but a gentle reproaching look from Shiro in her direction had her relaxing her features into something more neutral again.

“And I assure you, your Highness,” Allura pressed with that polite albeit tightlipped smile that Pidge recognised as her patience wearing thin. Her tone wasn’t clipped per se, but it was getting there and Pidge knew it was just about that time when Shiro would start taking over the speaking. That meant this was almost over. She didn’t know why she’d been asked to come along if nothing of this venture had anything to do with tech. “The goal of our alliance is not as a military force. We are not seeking to create a militia to battle the Galra head on. Voltron will shoulder the brunt of the fight in order to keep it away from citizens of planets. What you choose to offer is your decision and your decision alone.”

“We simply wish to gather information,” Shiro continued for her, his tone soft, yet firm. Allura cast him a subtle look of thanks. “We hope to establish a more connected base of different planets that can help us coordinate our efforts better in order to stop the reign of the Galra once and for all. As a paladin of Voltron, I promise you Voltron can protect you and your planet more readily if we can execute strategies based on knowledge of the Galra behaviours in this quadrant of space. We can also provide you with resources of any kind should you require them.”

Shiro’s calm voice and charismatic manner of speaking and inciting confidence definitely swayed some diplomats to their side, especially some of the female bird-human-hybrid looking Qioleans, who were definitely showing interest.

(Although judging by the _look_ some of them were giving Shiro, Pidge didn’t think they were as interested in joining the alliance as they were in joining _themselves_ with some certain part of Shiro).

“Hmm well. _We_ haven’t suffered from the Galra occupying this quadrant. So I don’t really believe protection is a necessity. Our military tech is the most advanced in space after all.” The king puffed up in pride, looking at them haughtily with his beak. He gestured around his grand, gold encrusted palace to them. “And I’m pretty sure we have plenty resources. I don’t think we need your scraps.”

Pidge had to physically dig her fingernails into her palm to keep from retorting that he was an utter and complete piece of shit moron. What the hell was wrong with this king? Even Shiro was getting frustrated—though he was a master of hiding it—and it took Slav-like efforts to get their fearless, patient leader flustered and annoyed.

“Extra protection doesn’t hurt,” Shiro said simply, folding his hands on the table. A stray beam of light caught the metal of his prosthetic and it glinted harshly, bringing everyone’s attention to it like an ominous reminder of the lengths the Galra were willing to go to in order to succeed in their mission. “Because even the best of defences might not be enough when your enemies see you as a means to an end.”

An uneasy silence fell over the room, and Pidge shouted _take that!_ in her mind, loving the fact that Shiro was manipulating the people in the room into wanting to join by using their fears against them by using what he’d gone through as an example. Shiro’s unassuming, calm nature made it really easy to overlook just how devious and cunning he could be when he wanted to be.

“W-well, we have plenty of time to discuss this after the banquet during our congressional meeting.” The king stood up suddenly, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. All the king’s subjects hurried to stand up as well, looking at him in confusion at his sudden desire to leave. “Oh, but, I would rather it just be on a need to know basis for _some_ people. I’m sure you understand.”

His unimpressed glance towards Pidge made it clear that he was saying she wasn’t invited to the negotiations. That was fine by her. She had no interest in sitting through a long, dull meeting where the king shot down all of their ideas and they struggled to keep a poker face. She honestly still didn’t understand why she’d been made to come while Hunk, Keith, and Lance were allowed to chill in the capitol city before the banquet. Keith being a representative of the Blade of Marmora made sense, even if he was an anti-social grump. Hell, even Lance would have been a better choice since he definitely had his looks to use as leverage.

“Very well.” Allura stood gracefully from her chair with a radiant smile that exuded warmth. It was such a 180 from her prior irritation that Pidge had to do a double take. “Take all the time you need, your Highness.”

“Please take time to enjoy our luxurious gardens and rest. We will prepare the finest meal possible for the banquet.”

“We thank you.”

They were dismissed from the room and left the meeting, a hypothetical cloud hanging over their heads at their failure to proceed with their efforts. Shiro excused himself from the two of them to go try to come up with a new strategy to get Qiolea to loosen their reigns on their privacy and open up to the idea of an alliance, but Pidge wasn’t so sure this was even worth the effort anymore. Pidge knew Shiro hated all the number crunching and data analysis and strategizing on the fly as much as Allura did, but he was being generous, especially because a dark look had settled in the princess’s gaze, and she looked, simply put, like she was going to shank the next person who talked to her.

Allura was so good with her diplomacy that sometimes Pidge forgot she was still fairly young and impatient at times and that she’d been thrown into an unfamiliar role that she’d had to teach herself. Working around impasses like this were probably things she’d never really had to deal with before. People usually jumped at the chance to work with her as soon as they caught sight of her face. Then she spoke all queen-like and cool and confident and that was all it took for them to be putty in her hands.

“Pidge,” Allura said calmly, though the undercurrent in her tone drew Pidge immediately out of her own thoughts. She stopped in the middle of the hallway, glancing around discreetly before turning to Pidge with a serious look on her face.

“Allura~” Pidge responded playfully, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, her hands clasped behind her back.

“I want to run something by you. Something’s not right with King Qylt. I’ve never seen someone so adamantly against joining the alliance on the basis that they didn’t need _protection_. What an utterly moronic and ridiculous notion.” It was pretty stupid. There’d been planets who’d turned down joining for reasons like fear of punishment from the Galra, not enough resources from poverty, recovering from previous battles, and more. _Those_ were valid reasons. Not wanting protection sounded dumb as fuck. “He’s hiding something. Coran told me Qiolea was known for ambitious and controversial military and government practices and experimentations on their people in the past.”

“What, like super soldiers?! Like Captain America?”

“Who?” Allura frowned in confusion. “Was he a leader of your Earth?”

Pidge waved off her own comment, forgetting for a second that Alteans and Altea were extremely similar to humans and Earth, but they didn’t have the same media. “Comic book super hero, sorry, nevermind. Go on.”

“Right. They ran experimentations and did other unethical things that weren’t viewed well and ultimately alienated Qiolea from other planets. It’s only recently that Qiolea started to associate with other planets’ alliances again, but it’s been tentative. I heard rumours that the relationship between Qiolea and other planets is very tense.” Allura rubbed her chin with a pensive look. “I’m suspicious. An isolated nation would be the perfect grounds for invasion by the Galra, especially one that has ample natural resources that could aid their empire. Look what the Galra did to the Balmera. I find it hard to believe that Qiolea somehow managed to avoid Galra occupation, especially considering their planet is roughly near the central hub of Galra communications in this quadrant.”

Pidge’s eyes widened. It was starting to make total sense why Allura brought her along now. “Is that why you brought me here? To do recon?”

“I had a feeling this meeting would be difficult.” Allura nodded, rubbing at her arm in subdued embarrassment and glancing down both sides of the hallway once again to make sure they didn’t have company who might overhear. “Call it a hunch. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but you’re our resident hacker, and I’m way past the point of negotiating fairly. I want to know what he is up to. Shiro agrees that we should take pre-emptive measures in case negotiations go poorly tonight.”

Pidge grinned deviously. She was all for this secret mission. “So what do you want me to do? Infiltrate central command and steal some data? Do you want me to grab some weapons here and there for Hunk to dismantle and study?”

“If you feel you need to. Try not to leave a trail though. Any and all information will be appreciated.” With an affirmative nod, Pidge started to turn to go, but Allura took her arm lightly to stop her. “And Pidge. Be careful. And please be as discreet as possible. This impasse is already tenuous, and I don’t think I need to tell you what will happen if anyone were to find out a paladin of Voltron was snooping around their records.”

“Don’t worry. Discretion is totally my middle name.”

 

…

 

Okay, so that had totally been a lie and discretion was most decidedly _not_ even close to her middle name, considering most recon missions she’d done had ended up with some sort of explosion or huge destruction that she’d caused.

(To be fair though, it was usually Lance’s fault. Occasionally Hunk).

But this was the real deal. She couldn’t wait to go rub it in their faces that while they’d been wasting their afternoon gallivanting in the capitol city, she’d gotten to go on an espionage 007 type mission on her own.

But Allura was right in that Pidge couldn’t screw this up because too much was riding on it.

It didn’t take her long to get into central command. As she expected, the king was so pompous and arrogant that his security practices were amateur and barely enforced at best, probably because he didn’t believe anyone would dare betray him. He even used a normal character input keypad for password protection, one of the most easily hacked types of protection to exist. All it took was Pidge hiding on a beam of the ceiling and waiting and watching for a guard personnel to punch in the code and slink inside. When she was sure the coast was clear, she floated quickly to the ground, and tucked and rolled seamlessly right into the room before the doors shut. She immediately darted behind a large cabinet and crouched, making note of the room she was in.

There was a large super screen running rapid figures in the centre, glowing green from the energy travelling through the cords. Keyboards surrounded it all around, but one particular keyboard had a bunch of other buttons and input functions, and Pidge figured that had to be the main one. There was a bird-man guard typing something on that keyboard, and the other guard walked up to him. They spoke in hushed tones, but she didn’t get any sense of urgency or alarm from their conversation. After a few more words exchanged and some laughs, both guards began to make their way out of the room. The guard whose entrance allowed her passage hit some switch on the wall which set what she assumed was some sort of alarm and then satisfied, he did a once over of the room, cut the lights and left.

Pidge immediately left her hiding place and headed to the main keyboard. She plugged in her cord to hack and started downloading the information and files in the database, skimming the info as it flowed past her face. She was definitely glad she’d updated her translation databases so that if certain previously translated written languages were similar enough to the new, unknown ones she encountered, it would mark the connections and use that other language as a basis for the translation. Not a perfect system, but it was useful at times to make quick connections. Qiolea was not in her language database, but it was apparently close enough in composition to Skavurian that she was able to get a rough makeup of the data she was pulling.

Allura had been right to be suspicious.

There were a lot of locked files Pidge would have to sift through properly in her lab to confirm, but from the loose files that leaked, it looked like they were developing dangerous weapons and running experiments to enhance the capabilities of their people. Not only that, but most of the experiments they were testing were all connected to something called Plox 10-B8. What was most interesting about this Plox thing when she tried to find more on it was that it had some of the most intense file protection mechanisms she’d ever seen in her life, even more intense than some of the Galra protection. And that was definitely grounds for investigation.

Why was the king blasé about his general central command, yet had so much security on one file that it was almost overkill?

Well, it didn’t matter. Pidge was going to steal the info anyway. She set to work changing the codes as best as she could with her lack of knowledge of their language or database configuration, using her tech to probe right through the key and unlock the information she needed. She ran a scan to make sure there weren’t any hidden booby traps or trigger switches that would alert someone that there was an intruder. She found three and made quick work of disabling them before running the scan a couple more times to make sure. Once she was positive there wasn’t some half buried trigger, she finally opened the file.

Pidge frowned as she skimmed the half-translated info on the screen. From what she could read, Plox was classified as an experiment to create a biochemical weapon, but what it could do was largely unknown because it hadn’t been finished or tested on anyone yet. It hadn’t been manufactured from only their own resources, but there wasn’t any info on what they’d used to compose it. In fact, whoever was the engineer of this Plox thing had just made the weapon without considering the chemical composition at all. Pidge was by no means a chemist—that wasn’t her niche or area of expertise—but even she knew that if you mixed a bunch of chemicals, some seriously horrible things could happen.

She was curious now. She was certain she could figure out what was in it if she could get a sample of it and take it to her lab. Technically, she had all the information she needed to present proof to Allura, but Pidge was in too deep to stop short of figuring out what the deal was with Plox 10-B8. Her curiosity had been peaked and she wanted to get a look at this thing. Another quick scan told her that like their other military experiments, it was located in a lab in the basement of the castle.

She quickly stored the information and closed out her programs before heading out of the command. She didn’t bother trying to sneak through the main halls and used a vent she’d traced would lead her right to the basement. She used the map on her armour tech to follow the right path through the castle.

When she reached it, she stared out of the grates into the darkened room. There was no one in here either, and she figured it must have been because most everyone was preparing for the banquet for the honoured guests.

All the better for her.

She pushed open the grate and flew out, landing on her feet in the absolutely _huge_ lab. Her jaw dropped slightly as she gazed around, looking at the sheer amount of vats and pumps and products and things hanging all over the walls and on conveyor belts. Experiments was an understatement. This was a _factory_. They were manufacturing an enormous amount of weapons and considering there was no war going on in their quadrant, this was extremely unsettling.

Pidge glanced around before finally seeing a corridor of glass leading to a door. It was something that could be easily missed since it was kind of hidden behind some of the vats. But most importantly, it had a command input beside the door.

“What are the chances my man Plox is behind that door?”

Pidge raced through the hallway and hacked the door with her tech, once again scanning to make sure she didn’t trip a silent alarm. The door slid open with a soft whir. She scurried into the doorway and descended the stairs that took her deeper in the ground. The further down she went, the colder the place became and by the time she got to the bottom, the air was so frigid she had to turn on her suit’s thermal protection and was blowing out little tufts of cold air with each breath.

To her surprise, this room was significantly smaller and all it contained was a single empty looking, capped, clear vial in an open metal casing on a stand in the middle of the room. There were no locks on it, and Pidge approached it carefully, frowning as she reached out to pick up the glass vial. It was very hot to the touch and glowed pink, an ominous hot pink that she instantly recognised.

“Wait… this is… this is _Galra_ nanotechnology!” she exclaimed in disbelief.

It had to be. She could recognise the weird hot pink heat from the Galra anywhere. Which meant that the Qiolean’s weapon was infused with Galra nanotechnology. It made perfect sense why they weren’t too eager to join the alliance now. The king was either benefitting from the Galra or working _for_ the Galra. That bred the question of why he’d wanted to meet with the Voltron crew in the first place if he was working with the Galra. Was this a set up?

Either way, whatever was going on, she needed to tell the others immediately. If they were about to be ambushed, they needed to prepare.

As she was thinking this, the vial continued to grow rapidly hotter and hotter, until it felt like it was burning her skin through her gloves. Pidge cried out, releasing her grip on it immediately as her hand throbbed and felt like someone had set flame to it to melt the skin on her hand. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt Green probing at her, wondering if she should run to Pidge’s aid, but Pidge assuaged her lion’s fears.

And then realised she’d let go of the vial.

By the time she’d dropped her gaze to find it, it was already making contact with the ground, shattering into a thousand little pieces. The pink glow disappeared almost immediately and the dust settled as the sound of glass breaking echoed in the chamber.

“Oh _quiznak_ …” In horror, Pidge dropped down to her knees, rushing to clean up the mess she’d made. Only a few seconds into her mad dash to pick up the glass to store the remains in a safety pouch did she remember all her chemistry lessons in school and quickly put on a mask to shield her face from whatever just had been released. Thankfully, she was able to use the 3D tech in her suit to make a fake replica of the glass vial that she then placed in the casing. It looked identical enough, but there was no pink glow.

Jesus. And Allura had told her to be discreet. Breaking something so huge was decidedly _not_ being discreet. She should have just left it alone.

Pidge made sure she didn’t leave anything else on the ground and rushed up the stairs two at a time to get out of the basement. She did a quick run through to make sure there was no one who’d come in there while she’d been downstairs before she flew back into her vent, pulling the grate shut behind her feet. She didn’t dare slow her pace until she was back in the main hallway of the castle, and even then, she went straight out and to the Castle of Lions perched outside, still going at her insane speed.

When she burst through the main lounge, Hunk and Keith were mid conversation, but stopped talking and stared at her with shocked looks at her wild eyes, hair in disarray, red face, and heavy breathing.

“Pidge, are you okay?” Hunk asked in concern, standing up to try to steady her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She stopped him with a hand. If she had a contaminant on her person, Hunk didn’t need to get it on him too. “I need a shower. Stat. Keith, get Allura immediately and tell her I need to talk to her now!”

She continued on her mad dash to their own castle’s lab. She was so glad they had thought to install a shower in there with all the oil spills and grease stains that she and Hunk tended to have through their work. She near ripped off everything she had on her person and tossed it all in a containment unit, threw her gloves and the pouch with glass shards into a different containment unit, and then went immediately to a shower stall. Pidge turned the water on full heat and hopped in. It was uncomfortably hot and her skin felt like it was taking a beating, but she needed to decontaminate herself and she scrubbed at her skin and through her hair vigorously, making sure she got into every nook and cranny, no part of her skin left unwashed. By the time she was done, she felt like a newborn baby, her skin pink and slightly sensitive.

When that was done, she hopped in the disinfecting chamber, closing her eyes as the gas chamber released the chemicals they used when they needed to remove toxins from their person from more harrowing missions on dangerous planets. She repeated it again, just to make sure, and then ran the scan to see if any toxins were still on her body. The scan came back negative and finally, she stepped out.

Only when she was done did Pidge finally release the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding. She wrapped a towel around herself and padded out of the shower station, tying her hair up in a wet, sloppy bun on the top of her head. She wasn’t feeling any kind of effects from what happened in the Qiolea castle, but that didn’t mean she should let her guard down. Who knew what she’d encountered that was in the vial? The most concerning thing was the fact that the glass shards hadn’t glowed pink anymore, but she couldn’t think of any theories as to why that was that didn’t end with her believing that she’d somehow gotten it on her. Or worse, _in_ her.

When she walked back in the lab, Lance was leaning against one of the tables with a half disassembled Galran sentry, idly picking up and observing certain pieces that were extremely beat up and burned that Hunk was trying to salvage for parts. She froze in place, startled. She’d forgotten to get some clothes to change into.

“Pidge, you good? Hunk said you were freaking…” Lance tapered off when he looked over his shoulder and saw what she was wearing. (Or rather, _wasn’t_ wearing). Silence reigned in the room. He didn’t react outright—in fact, his expression looked slightly strained—but she also didn’t miss the way his gaze drifted briefly away from her face.

“Take a picture. It’ll last longer…” Pidge grumbled, but turned and started inputting commands in the containment units for chemical analysis if only to hide the fact her cheeks had grown hot.

Rarely did the paladins see each other outside of their casual clothes or paladin armour, so it was even more awkward that he’d caught her in a towel of all things. And this certainly wasn’t going to help the weird undercurrent of tension that had started to seep into their friendship about a deca-phoeb ago.

Lance swallowed hard, shifting and staring at the ground while he rubbed the back of his neck. The tips of his ears were a bit red. “Uh… right. Are you okay? Hunk told me you ran in looking like the Grim Reaper was chasing you.”

“Just a recon mission that didn’t go the way I needed it to. It’s not a big deal.” At least she hoped. Then she noticed Lance was wearing a nice pressed suit and frowned in confusion. “What’s with the suit? And where’d you get it from?”

Come to think of it, Keith and Hunk had also been wearing suits when she’d first run in.

Lance grinned, posing in a way he clearly thought was suave. “I charmed one of the Qiolean tailors to fashion it for me for the banquet. Their sense of style is actually very similar to the ones on Earth. How do I look?”

She never thought she’d see the day when Lance “I’m all about that chill lifestyle” McClain would actually wear a tie, but she couldn’t really compose any real thoughts because it was a deep blue that brought out the colour of his gorgeous eyes and he looked way too hot in that suit than he had any business being. She wouldn’t be surprised if the girls he probably would flirt with tonight ate up all his attention. She must have been staring too long because suddenly Lance looked entirely too smug, and she knew she’d been caught ogling him. Dammit.

He ran a hand slowly through his hair, giving her a look that made her heartbeat jump. “Take a picture; it’ll last longer.”

“I-I was only staring because you look like a dork,” Pidge stuttered lamely, readjusting her towel and wishing once again that she’d thought to grab some clothes because she couldn’t hide any of her blushing on her upper chest or neck.

“…Liar,” he replied softly, a small smile tugging on his lips as he pushed off the lab table and strolled leisurely over to her. Pidge froze in place, eyes a bit wide as she tilted her head up, and wondering what he was about to do when he took off his suit jacket and gently wrapped it around her shoulders to cover her up.

His cologne smelled really good. “Oh. Thanks.”

“Anytime.” He tugged slightly on the lapels to cover her better, but it brought her a step closer to him, and they stared at each other, smiles dropping slowly as they blinked at each other in the quiet of the lab.

A million thoughts were racing through her mind, but they all vanished when the door to the lab opened with a whoosh and Hunk, Allura, and Keith barged in. Pidge and Lance hopped away from each other as if the other was on fire, both their faces dusted with pink. Judging by Keith’s raised brow and Hunk’s wide, twinkling eyes—oh no; he was definitely going to meddle—they’d definitely seen whatever it was that had been happening. Even Allura was trying to hide a little smile behind her hand.

“Where are your clothes, Pidge?” Keith questioned slowly in a tone that implied he would never stop teasing her about this situation.

“In a containment unit because they’re contaminated by some unknown Galra weapon.” That stopped the humour in the situation right quick, and all of them stared at her in shocked but rapt attention, waiting for her to explain. Pidge cleared her throat, getting rid of the little tickle in there. “The Qiolea were using Galra nanotechnology in order to fashion a biochemical weapon called Plox 10-B8. There was not much information on it, so I’m not sure all that’s in it or what they were trying to do, but I gathered all the information I could about it and I’ve started a scan on my clothes and the shards of glass.” Pidge turned to Allura. “You were right. They were experimenting with different methods of weapons production. Once I sift through their intel, I’ll be able to figure out exactly what is going on.”

“So they’re working with the Galra?” Lance questioned in concern. “What was the point of inviting us here then? To attack us?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know that for sure. Maybe figuring this weapon out might help us to ascertain its effects. All I know is that we do have to be careful. Stay cautious tonight. We might really be in danger.”

“Good work, Pidge,” Allura said, her brows knit in apprehension. “Did you manage to take a sample of the biochemical weapon?”

Pidge grimaced slightly at the question, coughing a few times into her hand. “Umm, that’s the thing. It reacted when I picked it up somehow and burned my hand and I kinda dropped it and broke it, so I don’t know exactly _where_ it is, but it should be on my clothes which I put in the containment unit so it’s taken care of.”

Keith frowned, his lips a bit pursed in distaste. “But you didn’t actually _see_ it?”

“…It evaporated.”

There were a few beats of silence where they all stared at her sceptically and concerned, and Pidge wished she wasn’t under so much scrutiny, especially when barely wearing anything.

Then Hunk spoke up. “So… what if you inhaled the chemical though?”

“Well I thought about that too, but I’m allergic to basically everything, right? So I’d probably have a strong reaction if I ingested it somehow, and I haven’t had one yet, so I don’t think I breathed it in.”

“There are lots of ifs and probablys in that statement, Pidge,” Lance said uneasily. “Maybe we should be figuring out a cure or something, just in case.”

“I’m so sorry.” Allura sighed, rubbing her forehead in exhaustion. “I should have never asked you to do this, Pidge.”

“No, you did the right thing.” She waved off their concerns in annoyance. “Look, I don’t think anything happened to me, and even if something did, it literally hasn’t changed anything about me as of right now. The Plox weapon was still not fully completed yet, so there’s a good chance it had no effects.”

They still looked unconvinced. Plus Hunk and Lance passed each other these odd looks that she definitely did not miss. She wished they would stop fussing over this.

“How about this? I go through and unlock all the files I stole, finish the chemical analysis on my stuff and then me and Hunk can reverse engineer the Plox to find out whatever shit is in it and figure out some sort of vaccine or whatever if there’s an infectious agent.” She glanced at the clock on the wall, rubbing the front of her neck and clearing her throat. “The banquet starts in less than a varga, so don’t you guys think we should start moving to get ready? With a king like Qiolea’s he’ll definitely take personal offence if we arrive late. Plus Shiro’s there on his own talking to people of the court, so let’s stop worrying about this for now.”

“…Fine,” Allura agreed at length, but her expression belied her lack of concession, “but only because you bring up a good point about the banquet. But we’re not done discussing this. And if you even for a second feel like something is wrong, you let us know immediately.”

She was so tempted to say ‘yes mom’ just to be patronising, but she knew her friends’ concerns were very founded. Making contact with some unknown species or substance could potentially be dangerous in a universe full of unknowns.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just hurry up and get ready.” She took Lance’s jacket off and handed it back to him as she walked past them to get to her room and get her clothes to wear for the banquet.

 

…

 

It never ceased to amaze Pidge how much some parts of the universe reminded her of 18th century England with all the banquets and the live musicians and the ballroom dancing. It was actually kind of cool that there were such common customs, even lightyears away. It made her a little homesick for Earth in some ways.

She coughed once to clear her throat, then started looking around for her fellow friends. Hunk was entertaining some of the chefs in an engaging manner, gesticulating with his hands while they nodded in rapt attention, jotting down notes while he spoke. Shiro was in a deep conversation with one of the diplomats, though by the discomfort in his expression, she wondered what was being said to him. She made a note to avoid their conversation because she really did not want to get caught up in whatever was going on there.

Pidge found Keith standing by the wall, partially hidden from the crowd of people. He looked very distinguished in his suit too—although the word she would specifically use was pretty—an unassuming charm to him that she knew other females in attendance noticed, considering how many kept glancing in his direction. While Lance had a very in your face, raw kind of outspoken attractiveness to him, Keith’s was subdued and mysterious.

She made her way over to him, trying not to step on the hem of the gown Allura had loaned her for the evening. Coran had done his best to shorten the hem the night before, but at the end of the day, it was still longer than comfortable for her and she’d had to take several measures to make sure she didn’t fall flat on her face. At least it was a teal colour and not white, otherwise she was sure she would have looked like she was wearing a wedding dress.

“You look uncomfortable.” She took a spot leaning against the wall beside Keith. Her voice came out a little more hoarse than intended, and she cleared her throat. “Who are you hiding from?”

“I’ve never worn one of these penguin suits before.” He pulled at the tie cropped close to his neck uncomfortably to loosen it up some. Keith was scowling as usual, but gave her a look out of the corner of his eye that told her he wasn’t particularly mad about anything. “And everyone.”

She snorted, then winced a bit when the action made her throat hurt. “You’re such an emo. Don’t you ever let loose?”

“Someone has to be security and keep watch.” He shrugged and slipped his hands in his suit pockets, jutting his chin out towards the party-goers enjoying themselves. “People are drunk, Pidge.”

“Nah, that’s not it.” She jabbed his side with a grin, knowing he was just goofing. “Two left feet? Scared to dance with some birds? What’s your affliction?”

“You caught me. I’m a bad dancer…” he drawled, shifting just out of the way of her finger. “Why are _you_ over here? Shouldn’t you be out there accepting dances from the diplomats? Or you know… dancing with your loverboy Lance?”

He wasn’t subtle at all with his prodding and just as she figured, he was smirking in amusement, watching her with a raised brow.

“He’s busy flirting right now, so I’ll pass.” It bothered her, but Lance had a job to do. He was disarming the female diplomats by lavishing them with his attention which would make it much easier for Allura and Shiro to do their jobs. She still thought some of his lines were atrocious, but he’d admittedly gotten better through the years plus there was something inherently charming about his goofy efforts. “Besides, I’m not going to dance with Lance. The last thing I want is for this whole evening to feel like that junior debutante ball my nonna forced me to go to back before I’d started at the garrison.”

“ _You_ were a debutante?” Keith looked comically surprised. “You must have been a nightmare. What’s the story behind that?”

“It’s a story for another day.” She coughed into her elbow, clearing her throat again when the tickle returned a bit sharply. The only one she’d told in full about that disastrous event was Lance, and he’d laughed his ass off so hard he’d snorted milk out through his nose and she’d decided maybe it would be best to keep it to herself since the boys were idiots. “But basically, a really nerdy girl had a crush on a popular guy her grandma had to pay to be her date.”

And at the time couldn’t dance since she’d skipped all the lessons and had gotten sick from the shrimp she’d eaten that night and thrown up all over his suit and shoes. On the plus side, that night she’d learned she was allergic to shrimp and most shellfish.

“Ouch. If it makes you feel better though, Lance came over here a while ago whining about you talking to everyone but him.”

She narrowed her eyes as she scrutinised him. Sometimes it was hard to tell when Keith was joking or not because he’d perfected the art of the deadpan snarker, but since he had walked in on her and Lance chatting earlier in the lab and could have been teasing her, she was less inclined to believe him.

 “You’re full of sh—”

Pidge didn’t finish her sentence because her throat closed up suddenly in the middle of her word and she erupted in a fit of coughing, dipping her head into her elbow as she tried to clear up the sudden constriction. She straightened up to take a breath but her lungs seized in her chest and she started coughing all over again, stronger than before. The tickle in her throat tightened, feeling like there was some heavy knot that was only growing larger and blocking her airway. Pidge grimaced, rasping a bit for breath and then coughing again when her lungs seized again.

Keith watched her warily as he gently patted her back when she doubled over. “Do you want me to get you some water?”

She nodded rapidly, between some more coughs, and Keith walked away to get her some liquid quickly. She tried to clear her throat for a second, but then her throat closed off completely and she gagged, suddenly unable to take in any air. Her eyes widened in fear and she rubbed at her neck, trying to loosen up the sharp knot caught in her throat as she rasped silently. This felt like one of her anaphylactic reactions when she encountered an allergen.

Had she eaten shellfish and not known?

_Pidge?_

Her throat was constricted so tight; it felt like sandpaper and she could do nothing but choke on her lost voice, failing to inhale any air. Her lungs squeezed painfully tight in her chest as no air entered in her lungs and tears pooled in her eyes. She couldn’t even make a desperate cry for air. She tripped forward and tumbled to her knees, clawing at her throat, black patches growing in her gaze. It felt like someone had a vice grip around her neck and refused to loosen up. Her lips trembled and in horror, she realised they had briefly glowed hot pink. It was like drowning without water, despite the fact that there was ample air here for her to breathe. Her lungs were on fire from lack of air, pinching so tightly that her vision was starting to blur.

“Pidge!”

_Pidge!_

“Pidge! Hang on!”

_What the fuck is happening to her?!_

She could hear several people calling out for her, but she couldn’t respond and she could barely see around the curtain of her ruined bun. Was this really the end for her? Dying in the middle of some stupid banquet on a planet full of self-centred jerkwads? She’d been hoping whenever she did meet her end, it would be gallantly in a difficult battle where she managed to at least stop a major threat before succumbing to injuries. She also didn’t think she’d end up dying at roughly 17 years old, and barely having lived a life after roughly 3 years of piloting in space.

Fingers shaking, she gave up, dropping her hands by her side and letting her body fall sideways.  Someone caught her before she hit the ground, but she barely registered it as her entire body shut down, shuddering in pain. Her eyes slid shut as her consciousness dimmed and she passed out.

_Pidge!_


	2. Chapter 2

When Pidge blinked open her eyes, she was met by the grey roof of… her room? She glanced sideways and yeah, there was the heap of garbage and robot parts and souvenirs from missions littering the floor. Her head was pounding though, and her mouth was thick with dried saliva from dehydration.

“Motherfucker…” she moaned, bringing a hand up to her head to rub at the sore point at the side. Why did it feel like a whole truck had run her over? But at least she was _alive_.

“Pidge!” Hunk exclaimed from beside her, and she turned to stare at him as he yanked her up and enveloped her in a giant bear hug that almost crushed her body. She chuckled, patting his back and wheezing a bit as he rocked her side by side. “You’re alive! You’re awake! Pidgey!”

“Easy, big guy, you’re going to crush me.” He let her go with apologies for his excitement before sending out an alert to the entire castle that she was awake and that he was going to bring her to the med bay.

“Now everyone can stop worrying,” Hunk said, gently helping her to her feet as she tried to kick off the covers and get out of bed.

_And hopefully Lance will stop ripping people’s heads off…_

“Why is Lance freaking out so bad?” Pidge asked, rubbing her eyes sleepily and accepting his help in getting her to her feet. She looked down at what she was wearing. Someone had changed her out of the constricting ball gown and into what looked like one of Allura’s lounging robes.

“How’d you…?” Hunk frowned a bit in confusion, scratching at his head before shaking his head like it didn’t matter. “I guess you know him too well. He thought you died because you were frothing at the mouth. He wanted to fight Keith for not doing CPR sooner.”

Pidge rolled her eyes, using Hunk as a crutch as they left her room and walked steadily down the corridors. “Lance needs to chill out. Keith didn’t even know what was going on either.”

“To be fair, we all thought you were about to die.”

_I’d be pissed if someone important to me died before I could say all I needed to say…_

This time, Pidge stared at Hunk in confusion because she’d heard both parts of his statement, but his mouth had only been moving for the first one. He gave her a quizzical smile in return, and she went back to focusing on walking, chalking it up to her being tired or something.

They made their way to the med bay where everyone was waiting for her, and after all the hugs and the _you’re okay!_ s, they stuck her in a pod to check her vitals and make sure she was okay. Like she’d told them over and over that she felt fine and probably just had an allergic reaction to something, the tests came back negative for anything. No traces of anything in or on her body anymore that could potentially be a hazardous allergen.

And it was true. She felt fine, aside from the throbbing at her temple which she chalked up to dehydration. And she was sure she’d just hallucinated the hot pink lips, after all, no oxygen had been going to her brain at the time, so she wasn’t surprised.

She’d apparently been out for only about three varga, so she hadn’t missed much, but her sudden illness had not only put a stop to the party, but also the negotiations. Allura had said they had to consider the possibility of a deliberate attempt to assassinate Pidge knowing what they did about the Galra potentially being allies of the Qiolea and had put a halt to negotiations herself while they investigated. But there was nothing in Pidge’s system that implied foul play, and the anaphylaxis seemed unprovoked.

“You’ve been through something traumatic. I think we should stop the questions for now,” Shiro said, setting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing it gently. “Pidge, for the time being, you should rest, get your strength back, and when you’re up on your feet again, we’ll consider our next steps to take. In the meantime, we’ll have someone watch over you to make sure you don’t relapse or something.”

“I’ll do it this time.” Lance volunteered immediately, walked over to her with purpose, and before anyone could say anything, had scooped her up princess style to carry her back to her room. “I don’t mind.”

“ _Lance_! I can walk, you know?!” He ignored her, and Pidge’s face burned with heat. It wasn’t that she didn’t like his attention or being cuddled up in his strong arms, pressed against his warm chest—she was pretty sure some dreams she’d had started just like this—but she was embarrassed from this happening in front of everyone else, especially since she knew her friends would use this as fodder to keep messing with her. Keith was smirking, Hunk looked amused by the turn of events, Shiro wary, but pleased, and Allura had that small knowing smile that usually appeared on her face when she watched them interact. Even Coran had some unsettling twinkle in his eyes she didn’t particularly want to decipher. “You can put me down, if you want?”

Lance shrugged, a motion she felt rather than saw. “I don’t want to.”

_Don’t act like you’re seriously not loving this right now, Pidge._

“Shut your quiznak, Keith.” Pidge snapped, turning her head and scowling at Keith. Now was really not the time to be teasing her about her little, something of a, maybe crush on Lance.

But instead of the usual smirk he gave her in response to his ribbing, he looked surprised. Come to think of it, so did everyone else, who stared at her in confusion.

“Keith didn’t say anything…?” Coran remarked, scratching his head and looking between the two of them like he’d missed something.

“He uh… he didn’t have to.” Pidge tried to play her sudden outburst off. “His face said it all. He has certain tells.”

Which _really_ brought a bout of shocked looks like she had grown an extra head, because if anyone had mastered the art of the poker face, it was Keith. He had _no_ tells, especially as a member of the Blade of Marmora who ran covert operations.

Okay… So that was weird.

“I need a nap,” she declared to distract them, trying to play up the fatigue angle so it would at least get them off her case. Some of their expressions had started to slip into the worried category and the last thing she needed was them thinking something was wrong with her and doting on her too much.

“Alright. Go rest. We’ll see you later,” Shiro said.

With that, Lance turned and left the med bay, face determined as he made his way briskly to the paladin quarters. There was almost complete tension in the way he carried himself, and Pidge stared up at him, chewing her lip and wondering what she could say to help him chill out a bit. Hunk hadn’t been lying. Lance looked pretty out of it, though she recognised the despairing look in his eyes as the same as when he was having self-deprecating thoughts. Whatever was going through his mind couldn’t be good.

_I’m so useless. If I can’t even protect her, who can I protect?_

And as if on cue, she heard it loud and clear, sounding just like Lance but this time, she _knew_ he hadn’t said anything because she’d been staring at the tension in his jaw the whole time. Pidge didn’t know what the hell was happening—she was sure it was hallucinations from fatigue—but she couldn’t let Lance keep thinking he was somehow responsible for this. He had done nothing wrong and she wasn’t going to let him keep beating himself up over this when it wasn’t even close to being his fault.

“Lance, you know you are not at fault for this happening, right? You did nothing wrong. You’re not useless, and you always do your best within your means.” She curled her hands loosely into the front of his dress shirt, leaning into him and speaking into his chest because she really didn’t think she could say this stuff to him and look him in the eye at the same time. “I probably ate something that I didn’t even know I could be allergic to. You know how I am. Plus we don’t even know what’s in all this space food, so how could we prevent something that we don’t even know?”

“You’re one of my best friends, Pidge. You stopped breathing for so long. We were so sure you…” His grip on her body tightened minutely, but he didn’t finish his statement. He didn’t have to. The wave of despair that suddenly hit her made her heart pound hard in her chest. She could feel his gut-wrenching grief.

She wasn’t sure where it came from, but a sudden image of the Qiolea banquet entered her thoughts, only this time she was seeing it from a different angle. Her joking around closely with Keith. When she started to cough uncontrollably. When she fell to the ground gripping her neck. How ashen she looked, her eyes red rimmed, and hair falling out of her bun. Lance not even excusing himself from conversation as he raced towards her, cold dread and panic so strong he couldn’t seem to breathe. Pidge passing out in his arms and then him racing her all the way to the Castle of Lions with the other paladins. Shiro giving her proper CPR although she still wouldn’t breathe and then kicking Lance out of the med bay when his panicking was making the whole situation much worse. The all-encompassing relief when shortly after, Pidge had taken in a short, desperate breath, still unconscious, but finally breathing on her own. All of them tearing up and almost crying in relief that they didn’t lose someone so precious to them.

“Lance…” she whispered, her voice shuddering at how strong the emotion in her vision had been. The agony from watching herself in such bad shape from someone else’s eyes made her want to cry. “I didn’t. I’m right here.”

“It better not have been the Galra who did this.” Lance muttered darkly.

_Or every last one of them is dead._

Pidge still wasn’t sure if Lance had spoken outright, but even if he hadn’t been speaking, his expression was murderous enough that he was spewing his dark intent all over the place.

“Lance. Look at me.”

When he kept his gaze resolutely forward, the tick still in his jaw, she reached up and grasped his chin, pulling his head down to make him look her in the eyes. He seemed hellbent on remaining angry, but she held his gaze regardless, making sure he knew how sincere she was.

“I said I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

He slowed to a stop in the hallway, his expression softening as he stared down at her. Pidge offered him a small, shy smile, shifting her hand so she was cupping his jaw and stroked his cheek gently with her thumb.

“Right here.”

After a beat, he finally nodded, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a little smile. “Okay.”

She really was tired though, and as they continued on their way, she felt the need for sleep crash into her head on. She curled further into Lance, punching him sleepily when he chuckled at her actions. As she tumbled into the world of dreams, a wave of something so affectionate and adoring and warm washed over her, and she smiled, not knowing where it came from, but soothing her as she fell asleep.

 

…

 

Pidge woke up the next morning, completely energetic with no headache at all to the scent of something that smelled like hot, sweet coffee, something they had not had the luxury of drinking in a very long time. She’d gotten ready in record speed and came to the table only to realise Hunk had prepared a quasi-Italian breakfast for her in honour of her recovery. Allura and Coran had splurged a bit to go to the Qiolea markets to buy some super rare, super expensive ingredients that were very reminiscent to ones on earth, even down to the same relative taste. Hunk had studied up all night to learn how to make some of the stuff.

He had everything she could have never dreamed of tasting again. Fresh Qiolea fruit cut up in an assortment of colours, caffè lattes courtesy of Kaltenecker with little Voltron lion head designs made with the foam, fresh baked bread-like rolls accompanied by butter and marmalade looking condiments. Some brioche with raisins just like Nonna would make, sweet biscuits, some green cookies. An assortment of tramezzino-like sandwiches to pick and choose from with prosciutto, olives, tuna, roasted tomatoes. There was even a homemade banner with what looked suspiciously like Lance’s cleaned up chicken scratch that congratulated her on her full recovery.

It was a dream come true, and for a second, Pidge felt pangs of hot tears at the back of her eyes and wiped them with a smile. The last time she’d eaten this was pre-garrison days after she’d gotten pneumonia during a school trip and on her return from the hospital Nonna had made a little taste of home for Pidge.

“Hunk, I don’t know what to say.” Her voice wavered as she gestured around them. “How did you…?”

“Lance told me that one time you said you missed the breakfast your grandma used to cook when you recovered from being sick and told me what to make,” Hunk said to her discreetly in a quiet voice. “Make sure to thank him properly, okay? _Privately_.”

He moved away with a wink, and Pidge felt her ears heat almost immediately. She glanced at Lance who was waving his hands wildly as he finished recounting a story to a giggling Allura and chuckling Shiro. He shifted and Pidge’s eyes met his from across the table. Lance’s lips spread into an easy grin, her heart started racing, and Pidge promptly decided she wouldn’t ever be able to thank him for this in private. It would be too intimate, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to handle telling him that he had given her a gift she could never really repay without her face bursting into flames.

Everyone took their preferred seats to eat in excitement, especially Coran and Allura who were fascinated by these new culinary dishes to try. Pidge for her part was just glad that yesterday’s weird hearing people talk when they hadn’t said anything shit was finally over. She’d been right. They were just weird hallucinations.

“To Pidge making a full recovery!” Shiro proclaimed, lifting his glass of orange water in a toast that everyone else met.

“Hey, where’s Keith?” Pidge asked, looking around. As far as she knew, he hadn’t had any Blade stuff to take care of, and she was sure she’d seen him leaving from the training deck that morning as she’d gone to take her shower.

Keith walked into the doors then, freshly showered, though there was a slight tinge of pink on his cheeks. He took his seat next to Shiro, although he didn’t quite meet his questioning gaze. He also seemed a little too fidgety and nervous.

“You good, Keith?”

“What?” His head shot up a bit, and he grabbed his glass of water and near downed it in one gulp. “Uh yeah. Sorry I’m late. Let’s eat.”

They did, piling food on their plates and praising Hunk for his culinary genius. Everything tasted amazing, and even though the alien food tasted slightly sweeter or spicier or more bitter or savoury than the Earth counterpart, it was still fantastic, and Pidge couldn’t wipe the grin off her face.

“Keith, why do you look so flustered?” Allura asked at some point, scrutinising their resident loner with a pensive look. Pidge glanced at him and realised he really had just about been blushing the entire time they’d been eating.

“Yeah, and why were you late anyway?” Lance pushed playfully, more provoking to get a rise out of Keith.

He cleared his throat and took a sip of his mug of coffee. “I uh, forgot to set my alarm.”

It would have been a decent enough excuse since things like that tended to happen on occasion, except someone said _liar_. Pidge’s head shot up when she realised it was Keith himself who’d said those words except… his mouth was occupied by the cup nor had it moved at all and no one else was reacting to those words.

And before she could even question if she’d mistaken some other noise for the word, her mind was suddenly filled with the image of Keith jacking off desperately in the shower while thinking of a sparring session he’d had with Shiro that morning, no shirt, muscles bulging, sweat dripping down the hard ridges of his abs and how the older man had felt pinning Keith onto the mats with a smirk and forcing him to give in. It was so vivid—his body heat, the way his skin felt touching Keith’s, the brush of Shiro’s crotch against his—that for a second Pidge almost questioned if it was her own memory. A sheer wave of arousal danced between her legs, so sharp and strong she had to rub her thighs together to alleviate some of the discomfort.

Pidge’s eyes widened as her fork fell from her hand, clattering onto the table, and she gaped at Keith with a blush on her face from what he’d been doing all morning to make him late. What in the ever living fuck had she just seen?!

Everyone was staring at Pidge waiting for an explanation as to why she was suddenly acting so shocked.

_What’s wrong with Number 5?_

_Maybe Pidge isn’t quite as recovered as we thought…?_

_Oh no! What if I cooked something wrong and she hates my food?!_

_I’m worried about Pidge… Should I talk to her? Maybe it’s her monthly comma?_

A bunch of voices clashed in her head at once, each one belonging to her fellow breakfast companions and each one coupled with absolutely _nobody_ moving their lips to speak whatsoever. It was official: Pidge had to be hearing voices, because this was insane.

Keith frowned. “…Is there something on my face?”

 “Uh… no.” Her voice cracked halfway through the word. She swallowed hard and dropped her head to continue eating. She’d gotten quite a view of Keith that she never wanted to see in her life and now she’d never be able to get out of her head. But more importantly, Keith getting off to the thought of Shiro was something she would have never guessed her sullen friend would do. It was just too shocking. “Your face is fine. It’s a very fine face. You look great!”

She guzzled down the rest of her water to try to wash the memory from her mind. But it stuck and Pidge’s face would not lose the fire on her cheeks. There was a sharp pang of jealousy coming from somewhere in the room that disappeared just as fast as it manifested, but she paid it no heed.

Something was really up with her head.

 

…

 

Pidge had a few theories as to what was going on—mind reading being the most prominent, but that was just _insane_ , even for space—but she needed to test it out a bit more. Luckily, that day, their crew was focusing their efforts on appealing to the people of Qiolea. After her brush with death, the king had indefinitely postponed their meeting, taking his sweet time to schedule a new one and telling Allura that as he didn’t feel safe for the time being, it would be better to lie low.

It pissed them all off that he was using this as an opportunity to delay their efforts, but at least one good thing had come out of the whole mess: seeing someone get attacked during the actual party and what was supposed to be a joyful celebration had made Qioleans paranoid and fearful of danger and the paranoia would certainly work in their favour to get more allies.

Keith and Lance both thought staying on Qiolea for a meeting with a possible Galra Empire sympathiser was a waste of time and that they should leave and focus their efforts elsewhere. But Shiro convinced them that if the planet was up to no good, it was up to the paladins to uncover dangerous plots involving the Galra in order to protect the universe. And to be allowed more access, trust had to be built first.

So they’d dressed in their armour and took to the streets to talk to business owners and other citizens about life on Qiolea. Pidge enjoyed this part the most. It was always fun to meet the interesting people who lived on different planets though their lives not so much different from her own in Arizona. It made her feel more connected with some of them. That despite being in completely different intergalactic systems, they were still all kind of the same.

But today, she wasn’t focused on making the connections with the people. She was experimenting.

They visited the market place where they’d bought the ingredients, and Pidge used that as an opportunity to let the buzzing she’d felt prickling around her head in. Thoughts flooded in like water breaking through a dam, occupying all corners of her mind and bouncing around her head, flitting in and out and in and out of focus. Somewhere in the back, Green whined in irritation at all the noise while Pidge apologised to her lion and told her it would be like this for a while.

When she focused on one thread tugging at her mind, she could distinguish between what she was hearing better. There were various thoughts like what someone should buy for dinner, comments on how bizarre the foreigners shopping were, Allura wishing she could ditch the visitation for one day and take a bubble bath, someone freaking out about a one night stand without protection, someone daydreaming about leaving their market life to go on a wild adventure, a couple expected filthy thoughts she caught about Shiro, Hunk wishing he had enough money to buy a green crepe-looking concoction, Lance grousing about the market being a sausage fest, Coran’s elation over the market being a sausage fest, a bunch of inappropriate thoughts on Allura’s hot bod and absolute beauty, Keith’s distinct possessive growl when someone flirting with Shiro touched his bicep, and one surprising thought about Pidge and what that mouth could do from some anonymous vendor with a clear view of her ass, since they kept ogling it.

(After that, she promptly shut down the thoughts in her mind and focused on Coran’s conversation with the old woman selling jewellery because it kind of freaked her out. She also moved in front of Hunk since it would block that vendor’s view).

But as they traversed the market, curiosity had her trying again, this time attempting to filter out certain thoughts and learn to focus on only one. It took several, _several_ tries, but she was able to control the flooding of thoughts depending on how much she exercised focus. Daydreaming or going in a daze almost always caused a large mess of jumbled thoughts to pour in and through trial and error she was able to figure how to keep her mind at an appropriate level of blankness to keep it largely unoccupied. There were some stray thoughts that could still slip in at their leisure, but it wasn’t frequent enough that she felt like she would lose her mind.

From there, she used deductive reasoning to figure out how this thing in her head seemed to work. For one thing, there was roughly a three metre distance for absolute clarity in the thoughts; any further than that and they were very muddled, if she could even catch them at all. And it seemed the more emotional the thought, the stronger they projected and the better she was able to single out that thought as a focal point. She almost never could catch specific mundane general thoughts unless she let every thought in the vicinity in her head.

But it did take a lot to exercise that much control over her mind and by mid-afternoon, Pidge had grown fatigued, her head pounding lightly with the overexertion. She was sure Green was telling her ‘I told you so’, and Pidge playfully nudged her in annoyance. She hopped up onto a rock ledge on a small plateau near the bakery that overlooked a gorgeous bay of orange ocean water. It was beautiful. There was a light breeze rustling her hair and she unravelled her braid, shaking her hair out and letting it whip gently around her.

“You look like you’re enjoying yourself,” Lance came up to the perch, holding two bottles of some weird rainbow coloured liquid in his hands. “Here. Compliments of that food stall since Hunk critiqued it.”

Pidge took one gratefully, chuckling to herself. Over the past three deca-phoebs, Hunk had become something of a legendary food critic in the universe. It was stated that having his help in their eateries and restaurants would skyrocket their food to new heights. There was usually always at least one person who begged for his feedback and expertise on every planet they visited. He’d even started an intergalactic food blog detailing the best dishes he’d tried on planets and ranking the food he tried on several different factors.

She took a sip and was pleasantly surprised that the colourful drink resembled a fruity soda, complete with the burp-inducing capabilities.

“It never ceases to amaze me how much like Earth this place kind of is!” Pidge exclaimed excitedly. “The food, the clothes, the landmarks and landscaping, the seasons. They’re kind of the same place.”

“Except for, you know, the whole birds as people thing.” Lance joked, climbing up on the ledge to sit down next to her.

She snorted, knocking her arm against his. “Well, yeah, and the fact that their bodies of water are orange. Still, I’d love to take a vacation here though. Can you imagine it? Sailing on the water, watching sunsets in the horizon on this ledge, romantic picnics in the mountains with great food.”

“Yeah…” Lance responded, absentmindedly taking a sip of his drink. “It would be nice.”

Except that he wasn’t imagining anything she’d said, per se.

He _was_ envisioning a picnic in the mountains, but it was largely abandoned. In his daydream, he and some unknown female were entangled on the blanket in the throes of passion. She was moaning and raking her nails down his back while he muttered sweet nothings in Spanish in her ear as he rocked steadily into her.

Pidge nearly choked on her drink, her cheeks flushing pink at the blatant dirty thoughts filtering in her mind that he was having. What the hell had she said to make him start envisioning raunchy mountain sex with some random girl of all things? Pidge couldn’t really see his partner because she had been largely covered from view, but she briefly wondered why the hands of the girl had seemed so familiar.

Lance cleared his throat, shifting a bit uncomfortably in his seat, and Pidge forced herself not to acknowledge the fact that he’d moved his drink and hands subtly over his lap. In any other circumstances, it would go unnoticed, but since she knew exactly what had been on his mind, she had a pretty good inkling why.

“So how are you feeling? Actually better? I know you don’t want us to worry, but you did go through something pretty bad.”

Pidge shrugged. “I’m not feeling any different than normal. I think it was just a delayed onset of my standard allergic reaction.”

Except that her lips had turned hot pink during it. And now she apparently could read minds.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Lance said with a frown, staring out at the horizon.

_Not sure what I’d do if I lost you…_

She turned back to face the water, sipping on her drink to hide the warmth spreading over her and the goofy smile that was threatening to come on her lips. Lance’s thoughts were leaking all over the place, and she could make out the distinct memories of their friendship deepening since they’d become paladins. Late nights trash talking each other while playing video games, their joint custody of Kaltenecker and treating her like their daughter, long evenings spent chatting on the lunge couches about their families and traditions of their culture that they followed, training sessions when they ganged up on Shiro together (and still lost), Pidge rambling about some tech she was working on while he listened attentively, even though he never understood a word she was saying.

It made her happy to know her friendship meant just as much to him as he meant to her. And yeah, it kinda sucked that she had a major crush that he would never reciprocate, but at the end of the day, he cared about her—enough to replicate one of her most important Earth memories—and that was enough for her.

“Listen. Lance, when you… uh,” she swallowed, licking her lips and losing her nerve when he turned his blue gaze on her. She started again. “I just wanted to say thank you for listening to me when I told you about my nonna. And thank you for telling Hunk about it. This morning was one of the best experiences I have ever had in space.”

“I told Hunk not to tell you,” he whined, looking put out, though the distinct red on his face wasn’t hard to miss. “There’s no need to thank me. Anyone would have done it for you. Plus Hunk did all the cooking.”

“But not just anyone did it. _You_ did. And it means the world to me,” she insisted, finally meeting his eyes again and trying to keep herself from going in a daze from how beautifully _blue_ they were, especially with the light hitting them at just the right angle. “Lance, I could never repay you for that. It was so thoughtful and sweet, and I can’t thank you enough for coming up with the idea.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and went back to looking at the water with an odd smile that she couldn’t quite pinpoint. “As long as you’re happy.”

 _As long as you’re always happy_.

That made her heart skip several beats. She’d always thought some of Lance’s lines were too corny, but she was surprised at how suave he could be when he wasn’t trying too hard.

She could be selfish, right?

Without thinking too much about it, she rested her head against his side, closing her eyes and smiling to herself. Lance tensed for only a fraction of a beat before loosening up, lifting his arm so it was wrapped around her shoulders and pulling her closer to him so she could more comfortably rest. He said nothing of her sudden decision to be physically affectionate, and his thoughts were largely, deliberately empty for some reason.

“Hey…” she said, briefly interrupting the quiet.

“What’s up?” he responded after taking another sip of his drink.

“…Do you think Qiolean females lay eggs?”

Lance’s loud bark of laughter was accompanied by the mental image he’d been thinking of a Qiolean squatting and straining on a toilet to release a giant egg as doctors and nurses encouraged her to push.

“I think it depends on what reproductive system is predominant,” he answered, shoulders still shaking from his chuckles. “Although I do remember one of the vendors selling that fertility pill saying something about mounting their mate.”

Pidge sipped some of her drink. She loved the splash of fruity flavour that bombarded her mouth with each sip. “It’d be so weird if they reproduced like birds with the whole sperm packet thing and all though.”

“Urgh.” Lance shook his head. “Did not need that mental image, Pidge. Thanks.”

“You’ll live.” She patted his thigh consolingly, snickering to herself. He wasn’t lying that she’d gotten that image stuck in his head. “Bird-human hybrid is an odd combination.”

“Tell me about it…”

“Also, you smell like Kaltenecker, Lance…” She shifted closer to him despite her words and decided she didn’t really mind the slight scent of their cow on his clothes. It wasn’t overpowering the fresh scent of his soap on his skin which she absolutely could spend ages inhaling.

“Hey, you appointed me on morning milking duty, you know,” he murmured, his low, gentle voice carrying right into her ear from his proximity. It caressed her like a soft lullaby, and she barely suppressed a shiver, wondering when his voice had started to get deeper.

_Wish we could stay like this forever…_

She wasn’t totally sure if that was her own thought or his since it was more of decisive feelings than any clear words, but she snuggled further into him, watching the sailors on the horizon with a contented sigh.

 

…

 

Scanning Qiolea castle files had taken quite a bit of time, especially when the computer translator had run into a bit of trouble when mechanical and technical jargon came into play. There weren’t any substantial similarities to any other languages as far as those complicated words went, and so she’d had to go out in search of a dictionary which took even longer to decipher words because then she had to translate the definitions in the Qiolean dictionary and by the time she’d made sense of it all, she’d had to figure out grammatical arrangement of the phrases.

By the time she’d sifted through most every file, dinner had long passed. The scan of her items in containment was only at 93% percent and though that was closer than the 67% it had been at when they’d left the castle that morning, it wasn’t fast enough to her liking. Especially since the king had decided he wanted to reschedule the next meeting in two quintants, which meant if they needed to do any other investigating in the castle, they would need to do it then. It could very well be their last chance.

(And Pidge’s last chance to figure out a cure to her current affliction).

Hunk re-entered the lab a few moments later with Keith, holding a plate of food goo that he offered to her. “Please take a moment to eat, Pidge. You can’t work on an empty stomach, you know?”

_You kinda look like hell…_

“I’m aware of what I look like, Hunk…” Pidge intoned, barely looking up from the dictionary in front of her face. Keith looked between them both in confusion.

“Oh… uh…” She glanced up with a raised brow, and Hunk burned with a blush of embarrassment.

_Did I say that out loud?_

It was the only brief respite from her work that she allowed herself, snickering in amusement before continuing to try to translate definitions while shovelling goo in her mouth.

“Made any progress yet?” Keith asked, wandering over to the containment unit and watching the green scanner rotate. It changed only one percent, and bored, he wandered over to a different table to look at the scraps of metal Hunk had dismantled to make new parts.

“If we did, I wouldn’t still be reading this dictionary, now would I?” Pidge retorted sharply. She didn’t like being disturbed when she was in the zone. His brows skipped up slightly, but he said nothing and turned around with a slight nod.

_So Pidge is bitchy when she doesn’t eat. Noted._

She would remember that comment too, Keith.

They all got quiet, Keith just watching Hunk work as he tinkered with a mechanism for the ship. Pidge worked on the file translations, unlocking more zipped files as she figured out the keys. She inputted all the new words into the language database of her computer as she worked though, which lessened her work when those words popped back up. It was taking a long time, but Qiolea didn’t seem to have an electric database for any dictionaries that she could import into her own system. Manually inputting it took forever because not only did she have to put in the definitions, but she also had to include similar words, synonyms, and antonyms so that the database could recognise words better.

After a while of working, she stretched her arms high above her head, cracking joints in satisfaction. Well, at least until mid-stretch, a soft wanton groan filled her ears.

Her head shot up so rapidly, she nearly gave herself whiplash, but she swore if either of the guys was doing anything sexual in her lab _while she was right there_ , she would end them. But Hunk was still working on the part, and Keith was chilling in a chair, idly scrolling through his phone. Hunk was singing and dancing in his mind to some cute bubblegum pop song he’d heard on a different channel and thinking about what he would eat for a midnight snack, too enthralled in his work to be the culprit.

Keith though, was looking at pictures in the Paladin scrapbook that Coran had started a long time ago, a shared photo album that they put pictures of their memories on planets in to always remember the good times. Keith was skimming past a photo of her and Lance from behind on that ledge, cuddled up with his arm around her and her head nestled in the crook of his neck and shoulder as the sun painted a beautiful glow around them.

_Wow. They’re cute._

It was a cute picture. And slightly romantic. They would have easily been mistaken for a couple by anyone that didn’t know them. Pidge was wondering who had taken that picture of them in the afternoon though (while she totally picked up her phone to store the image on her own phone as her wallpaper). As far as she was concerned, she’d thought they’d been alone the entire time.

Keith’s musings on how cute they looked didn’t last too long though because Keith travelled back to a picture she was sure he had looked at a thousand times, judging by the fact that it manifested in his mind before he’d decided to scroll back up. Unsurprisingly, it was Shiro doing shirtless bench presses, an intense, focused look in his eyes that definitely got Keith all riled up. It was an innocent enough photo and a blurry Lance was even doing cardio in the background, except Keith was focusing deliberately on the trail of dark hair leading to under Shiro’s gym shorts.

She heard the same needy moan again and with startling clarity, the scene in her head shifted to Keith peeling down Shiro’s shorts slowly until they were pooled at his ankles while the man was mid press. Keith ordered him not to stop working out as he slid his hands down his chest and abdomen, wrapping a hand around Shiro’s length and loosely pumping him, slickening him up with his own precum, but not attempting to put any real pressure.

“ _Keith…”_ Shiro groaned, struggling to complete his repetitions. He was gripping the bar so hard his knuckles were white.

Keith sank to his knees in front of Shiro, kissing a path up his inner thigh and nipping him gently with his teeth the closer he got. Shiro’s breath caught. “I said don’t stop your work out.”

Shiro couldn’t help the soft whine that left his lips when Keith gave him a long, languid lick from base to tip before dropping a soft, playful kiss on the head. He wrapped his fingers around the base, gripping him and pumping them up and down his shaft while sucking gently on the head. Shiro released a broken moan, thighs quivering, and he very nearly dropped the bar on his chest when Keith took him fully into his mouth and to the back of his throat, cheeks hollowed as he sucked on him, tongue swirling around the head every time he pulled up. Shiro was a goner. He was straining his muscles just trying to keep pushing the bar up and panting heavily, jerking his hips up desperately into Keith’s mouth. Keith unlatched himself from Shiro’s cock with a crude pop and an evil smirk in his gaze, lips darkened and wet with saliva and Shiro’s juices.

The daydream faded, and Pidge couldn’t help but stare at him. The whole time he’d been imagining that filthy scene, Keith’s face remained impassive, even bored. The only indication that he was affected was the fact that he nonchalantly crossed one leg over the other. To anyone else, he would look like he was killing time on his phone.

It took everything in Pidge’s power not to shout at Keith. It was shocking that behind that deadpan exterior was such a perverted guy. It made her wonder how many times he had been chilling quietly beside them yet the whole time, his mind had been on something totally inappropriate. This motherfucker was perverted as hell. And she would never be able to look at Keith the same way.

The containment chamber buzzed from finishing the scan a couple ticks later. Composition information of all the contents appeared on holographic screens that popped up, neatly organised based on how closely associated they were to each specific item or if the particle located already had a match with something previously inputted in the castle archives. All three of them looked up at the screens, skimming the information present, although Pidge was the only one who understood what it meant.

She pushed an intercom button on her suit to call Shiro to tell everyone to come to the lab immediately. Once she got affirmation from Shiro that he’d bring them, she went back to squinting at the screen, a small foreboding feeling growing in the back of her mind. Pidge stood up and took quick steps over to the screen and quickly scanned the composition information with her armour’s tech, checking for matches to anything in the castle’s system.

The information and translated composition of Plox 10-B8 was already unlocked and in the castle’s database, so there should have been a perfect match for the substance on the pieces of glass and her gloves. But there were no matches to any known substances. So whatever was in that Galra nanotech didn’t match up with Plox 10-B8 at all.

And now a part of her wondered if what she’d found was even Plox to begin with.

“Are there any good observations?” Keith asked her, coming up to stand beside her as he observed the divisions of the substances in the chamber. He leaned in and pointed over her shoulder at the red column, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I’m not well versed on Altean script, but I couldn’t help but notice that column is red.”

“Very good, Keith,” Pidge responded in a patronising tone, talking really slowly and acting purposely condescending. “And what colour do you see over here?”

He snorted and rolled his eyes, resting his elbow on her shoulder as he observed the script. “I _meant_ it looks ominous. Red is usually a sign of something bad.”

“He does have a point,” Hunk said from his workbench, nearly elbow deep in metal and bolts and screws as he rummaged around his stock pile for the piece he was looking for. “That doesn’t look too good. We’re not in danger are we?”

“I’ll get to that when the others come. We know what to look for now, but it’s not that simple.” But there was no way she was about to tell them that what she’d found and broken may not have been the biochemical weapon King Qylt was producing.

It didn’t take too long for Shiro and Lance to amble into the laboratory, looking a little anxious at the news she had to give. Well, _Shiro_ looked anxious. Lance had a neutral expression on his face until he’d turned in her direction. His face looked a little pinched, and he was clearly displeased about something. She tried to figure out what was going through his mind, but Lance schooled his expression into something carefully bored and turned to Hunk when he called their attention over to them.

“Hey. Where’s Allura and Coran?” Hunk asked when he realised neither of the Alteans were there.

“It’s late; they retired early for the night. And I think Coran tired himself out by visiting every shop in the market and talking to every owner. Don’t worry; I’ll relay what you tell us to them.” Shiro crossed his arms in front of his chest, and Pidge didn’t miss the way Keith’s eyes drifted to the sexy bulge of his biceps. And also _didn’t_ miss his next thought of wanting to climb Shiro like a tree. Jesus. “So what’s going on with this?”

“I ran a full scan of the materials and substances inside of the containment chamber and changed the parameters of the scan to nanometers so that it would only pick up specific molecules of a certain size. We want to weed out any irrelevant particles and all that jazz.” She gestured to the scan results on the big screen in front of the chamber. “As expected, in the chamber with my armour, the majority of particles were cellular matter, dead skin cells, and tissue from my body and skin. And other occasional microscopic organisms crawling over my skin.”

Hunk’s face took a distinctly disturbing green-ish tint, and Lance took a subtle step away from him since he was in spew range. She’d forgotten how queasy Hunk tended to get over things like critters, creepy crawlies, and basically anything having to do with microbiology.

“The chamber with the glass shards and my gloves had different results though. Since I’ve had full physicals, the castle was able to recognise content that was related to my body and regard it as safe. But the most important part is this column right here.” She pointed to the short Altean list lettered in the colour red. “These are foreign substances, only in very miniscule traces, but they’re there. Just about three crystal grains of the biochemical weapon left.”

“I thought you said there was an entire glass vial with the stuff?” Lance questioned brows furrowed in concern. “Where’s the rest of the substance?”

“Probably evaporated.” Beside her, Keith glanced at her uncertainly at her response, but she shrugged with one shoulder and turned back to face the screen. “Either way, the good news is that we can locate these miniscule traces and pull them from the glass or my gloves so that we can make some sort of stock with them and reverse engineer it to figure out how it was made. Which will definitely come in handy.”

“How?” Keith asked, now looking completely confused over the conversation at hand. He wasn’t the only one.

“We want to isolate the Galra technology and break it down in order to figure out the mechanisms behind it. Figuring out how it works will definitely help us to make some speculations on what it’s supposed to do. The universe is pretty cool in that raw materials used for any substances can usually be traced to specific locations.” Hunk explained. “One grain of the Galra weapon is tiny, which means that ample resources would have been needed just to make one glass vial. If their aim is to create a massive line of Galra weaponry, they’ll need a lot of raw resources. If we find the source planets or species of the materials, we’ll be likely to find some more occupied planets and possible Galra rebel camps. And not only that, but figuring out the composition could be useful for creating vaccines or even just good enough for making a counter chemical to negate the effects of the Galra nano-weapon.”

“Exactly,” Pidge said with a grin, air highfiving Hunk. It was great to have a friend who was intellectually on par with her because everyone else had been giving her blank looks when she’d been speaking earlier. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“You _really_ couldn’t have,” Lance ribbed, smirking at her. “Half the time you explain stuff, it comes out in Nerd which most of us don’t speak.”

Pidge threw him the finger along with her unamused expression when they all started laughing. “Hardy har har.”

“Great work on deducing all of this.” Shiro nodded in approval, gesturing to the whole thing. “You said that was good news. So what’s the bad news?”

She winced. Nothing ever went over Shiro’s head. He was all stern business and serious as usual.

(Which according to Keith’s current thoughts, was exactly what made him a snacc apparently).

“There appear to only be three nano grains of the biochemical weapon, so it’ll be hard to extract them.  And in order to locate them and find them, we would have to engineer a microscope with the ability to magnify in the billions. Even more than any kind of magnification we could ever build on Earth.” Pidge sighed, annoyed that every advancement also had a setback.

“But we’re in space.” Lance pointed out. “Isn’t it way more technologically advanced? We’re bound to find a microscope like that somewhere out here.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t even know where to look and we would only have two quintants, one actually considering the second day is the day of the meeting, to find it and if we can’t find a microscope, we’ll have to build the microscope fast plus we would then have to find the substance and then have to reverse engineer it immediately after and run some tests on it to see if we’ll need to get anything else from the castle which could take a very long time because we wouldn’t even know what to test for and that’s if we even succeed in reverse engineering it in the first place—”

“Breathe Pidge. We’ll just have to ask Coran if he knows anything,” Shiro interrupted gently, placing a hand on her shoulder to stop her rapidfire rambling. She took a big gulp of air, trying to calm down her racing mind. “I know it’s a lot at once, but I’m sure he’s bound to have some ideas. And we’ll all help you and Hunk as best as we can.”

“I’ll ask some Blade members too to see if they might know of anything you would need,” Keith stated.

She nodded gratefully. “I already compiled a list of some basic materials we’ll definitely need if it comes to that. But there’s one more thing. I think the chemical is super combustible. When it encountered my body heat, it grew extremely hot, so we need to exercise caution, and make sure we keep the room very cool. The last thing we need is the lab blowing up. I still don’t know what kind of conditions are optimal for it to remain inconsequential. From what I’ve observed, glass can hold it and metal does not provoke it into generating heat.”

“We need to get that Galra weapon out of their hands _before_ they accomplish whatever is their goal.” Keith ground out. “It could be used for mass murders and other untold horrors.”

“Hmmm. This is starting to be troubling.” Shiro leaned back against a lab table, rubbing his chin slowly in thought. “Keith. Get the Blade involved in this on standby just in case we need backup. But in the meantime, if we need to find materials or get the microscope, Lance, you’ll go with Coran to bring it back to Hunk and Pidge. We also need to make sure you didn’t miss anything important when you went the first time, Pidge. So when Allura and I attend the meeting with the diplomats, Keith, you and Pidge will go back to that lab to find any other samples and take them back so they can be studied or destroyed.”

It made sense, and Pidge considered it a very acceptable plan. Keith nodded as did Hunk in agreement, but Lance’s sudden indignant feelings crashed over her.

“Huh? Why are they the ones going to spy?” Lance objected, looking a little disgruntled and irate. Hunk winced slightly, and it didn’t go unnoticed by Pidge.

_C’mon Lance… It’s not like that._

Like what?

“Because Pidge is a hacker, and already is acquainted with the layout of the lab considering she did the original recon, and Keith already does ample work as a spy in covert operations.” Shiro explained patiently, though he gave Lance a warning look out of the corner of his eyes.

 _Don’t start this now, Lance_.

Pidge’s brows furrowed. Start what?

But Lance completely ignored what Shiro was trying to tell him with his expression.

“Pidge just got sick because of that recon mission. Don’t you think it would be better for her to sit this one out?” he protested. “Or do another part of the mission or something?”

“ _Excuse me_?!” Pidge rounded on him, anger welling up in her fast. This overprotective act was unacceptable and she was offended Lance would even suggest that in the first place. She was perfectly capable of handling a simple mission like this, thank you very much. “I can damn well fend for myself, you quiznaking ass. And now that we know things could potentially be dangerous, we’ll be better equipped this time. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not _sick_ anymore. I don’t need your stupid machismo, overprotective bullshit! That’s sexist and belittling, and I am not some fragile daffodil who needs a knight in shining armour! I can hold my own!”

“I-I didn’t mean it like that,” he quickly amended, trying again, though a little more weakly this time. “I just… don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Lance…” Shiro growled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We talked about this.”

Shiro’s thoughts flitted too rapidly for her to grasp them in full, but she caught little kernels of a separation of personal and professional feelings lecture he’d given Lance after she’d started breathing again the night of her allergic reaction. She wasn’t sure what it was about, but Lance had promised to tone it down. Something he was clearly failing to do.

“What exactly would a better alternative be then, Lance?” Keith prompted, crossing his arms over his chest with a raised brow.

“I… I don’t know!”

_But why Pidge with **Keith** of all people?_

The retort sitting on the tip of her tongue died in her throat and her brows furrowed in confusion at what she’d heard. It was coupled with a huge wave of severe jealously that nearly had her recoiling and taking a step back. She thought Lance and Keith had gotten over their little rivalry a long time ago. They usually got along great. Why was he so envious of Keith getting to be the one to go on the mission?

This was probably exactly what Shiro had been trying to get him to chill out about.

“Look Lance. This is a very fragile, time-dependent mission. Keith has tons of experience in extraction missions from being in the Blade,” Pidge said gruffly, storming over to him and jabbing him harshly in the chest. He was behaving reprehensibly, and it disappointed her because she’d been hoping he had gotten over it. “I’ll definitely have a huge chance of success without incident if he comes along with me. I trust him because he won’t let anything happen to me. You need to trust he’ll get the job done, too!”

“I trust Keith!” Lance asserted, matching her frustrated tone word for word. “This isn’t the issue here!”

“So then what exactly is _the problem_?!”

Silence reigned in the lab, her words echoing in the grand room and abruptly ending the argument. The others looked away awkwardly, scratching the back of their necks and wincing at her tone.

Lance didn’t say anything, staring down at her, his lips pressed in a thin line and gaze dull, and though Pidge held her ground, glaring up at him with crossed arms, she couldn’t help but feel like she’d betrayed _him_ somehow. And it frustrated her even more because those were definitely his feelings he was projecting towards the situation and it made absolutely no sense for her to be feeling like she betrayed him and yet she couldn’t shake the damn thought.

Lance looked away with a heavy sigh, finally giving up, but contrary to her expecting him to perk up and let this go, he grew even more sullen, his jaw clenched tight and a look in his eyes that she could only describe as _hurt_. Why would he even be hurt about this?

“So are we all good with the plan?” Shiro questioned slowly, looking at each of them in turn to get confirmation that they were on board and on the same page. He turned his gaze to Lance, staring him down until Lance nodded begrudgingly, but the pained and defeated look on his face remained. “Great. It’s late. Let’s all get some rest. We’ll be visiting even more places tomorrow so it’ll be a long day. Keith, let’s go contact the Blade.”

Keith and Shiro left the lab, although she caught Shiro’s preoccupied feelings of unease over Lance and when he should talk to him. Whatever. Lance could act like a piss baby all he wanted; she didn’t care and it wasn’t her business.

Pidge began to gather some of her other projects and the dictionaries in a bag to take to her room to continue to work on the translations. Now that she was uncertain what she’d gotten was Plox, it was imperative that she go through all the files to see if she could figure out what exactly it was that she might have encountered. She would have stayed in the lab, but Shiro tended to monitor it and force her to bed to make sure she wasn’t working well into the night to get stuff done. He couldn’t stop her from working in her room, though.

She was in the middle of shoving an upgrade she was working on for the propellers on their jet packs when a stray thought hit her as Hunk and Lance passed by her on their way out. Hunk waved cheerfully and bid her goodnight, and so did Lance, but Lance grumbled the words and kept his gaze staunchly on the ground.

_Never expected Pidge to be even more oblivious than Shiro…_

The thought came from Hunk, who had an arm wrapped consolingly around Lance’s hunched shoulders. Pidge stopped packing stuff, straightening and glowering at their retreating backs in offence.

How the fuck was this _her_ fault?

What had she even done?

Lance was the one acting like a child.

Lance was the one being a total condescending douche.

 _Lance_ was the one picking fights for his own stupid personal reasons.

But somehow, _she_ was supposed to feel sorry for whatever it was that got him all in his feelings?!

“Screw you both.” She scoffed, yanking the bag from the ground.


	3. Chapter 3

“Alright, and that’s our itinerary for the day,” Coran said, shutting the holographic schedule he’d pulled up so that they could all see what they would have to do for the day. “It’s going to be a busy, busy day and we have a lot of people to visit and ground to cover so we’ll split up into groups. Make sure you visit whatever sector you’ve been assigned to and take lots of pictures and lots of souvenirs! I hope you all got ample rest!”

Pidge most definitely had not gotten enough rest. Despite her best efforts to immerse herself in her work, she couldn’t get her mind off of Lance and his stupid hurt face. All night, part of her wanted to go to his room to apologise which she’d ultimately decided against because even though she’d blown up on him, he’d deserved it for acting like a Grade A tool. In the end, fed up with her racing thoughts, she had tried to go to bed, only to end up unable to because she couldn’t stop worrying about her fight with Lance.

“Keith left for a small Blade mission on a planet nearby earlier this morning, so we can split evenly since he won’t be available. He’ll be back later,” Shiro informed them, answering Hunk’s silent question of why their emo friend wasn’t in attendance that day. “We’re in luck though. Coran told me that the microscope we need to locate the nanotech that Pidge found does exist and it’s located nearby where Keith’s mission is. He promised he would go collect it and bring it back before the day ends. The only downside is that he won’t be back until late, so you might have to start early tomorrow instead of tonight. It shouldn’t interfere too much with your schedule since the congressional meeting will be late though. Are you okay with that, Pidge?”

It wasn’t like she and Lance had never fought before. She could definitely remember instances and occasions when they’d gotten frustrated with each other for little things and stopped talking to each other for a few varga. It was expected when you lived in such close quarters with the same people for several years. There were bound to be arguments and disagreements over stuff. But that’s all they were. Small arguments and disagreements.

“Pidge?”

Very rarely was it an argument that intense to the point that they could barely make eye contact during breakfast. Normally, they traded food on their plates and hung out talking about whatever before the morning meetings, but she’d hidden away in her lab until it was time because Lance wasn’t being particularly open that morning. This felt different. Like something between them was off and she didn’t know what to do to mend that. When they usually made up, they would just somehow start talking again about something stupid and the argument would go largely forgotten. But she just knew that wouldn’t fix this mess.

“ _Katie Holt_ ,” Shiro suddenly said in an authoritative Galaxy Garrison instructor voice, loud and clear and yanking her out of her own head.

“Huh?” She snapped her head up and blinked in surprise at the sudden use of her real name only to realise that everyone was staring at her. She’d missed most of what Shiro had said, although she figured whatever it was was probably related to their current plans. Allura was mentally wondering if she’d gotten enough rest because she looked very bedraggled and apparently had bags under her eyes. Pidge’s eyes met Lance’s from across the way, but she very quickly snapped her gaze away from him and back to the ground. “Uh, yeah. Whatever. It’s fine.”

Someone briefly wondered if Pidge was still mad from last night, but she was too exhausted to make out the voice in her head.

“Splendid!” Coran exclaimed. “Alright, let’s get the day started then. Even pairs, everyone!”

“Even pairs? In that case, I’m pairing up with Allura,” Lance said, shifting closer to her and waggling his eyebrows while she glanced at him in fond exasperation. Pidge left her expression carefully blank, staring dead ahead at Shiro and forcing her face to stay neutral, even when she felt Hunk’s eyes settle on her to gauge her reaction. “It’ll be like that date we’ve never gotten to go on.”

“Alright, Lance. But remember that our focus is on the Qiolean citizens, so focus on that.”

“I make no promises, Princess,” he responded flirtatiously, in a tone that had Pidge clenching her jaw in irritation.

Pidge promptly shut down all her thoughts so nothing in Lance’s head would filter into her mind. She had absolutely no desire to see or hear something that would definitely hurt her, especially since he seemed to have made it his mission to focus all his energy on Allura. In fact, now that she thought about it, she was pretty sure it’d been Allura in his dirty mountain picnic daydream when they’d been watching the water on that ledge.

“Pidge? Who do you want to go on our meet and greet with?” Shiro asked her softly.

_If you say Lance, he’d go with you in a heartbeat._

There was something about the sympathetic gleam in Shiro’s eyes that made her heart ache in her chest, and she chewed her lower lip to stop whatever weird painful feelings were welling up in her. She would never do that. Lance chose Allura. There was no way she was going to subject herself to the humiliation of him turning her down in favour of their awesome other leader.

Swallowing the tightness in her throat down, Pidge grinned wide and easy and linked her arm with Hunk. “ _Obviously_ Hunk. Can’t think of anyone else I would ever want to spend a day with.”

That did get a small reaction out of Lance, who glanced over at her with a slight annoyed twitch of his brow, but he turned away just as fast, some look on his face like he’d eaten something sour.

So that was that then.

Pidge kept her gaze staunchly off of Lance—and also Shiro who somehow seemed disappointed in her without looking disappointed at her—and spun on her heel to drag Hunk out of their control room.

“That leaves you with Shiro, Coran. See you all later!” And with those words, Pidge stormed out of the room, Hunk being tugged along mercilessly, nearly squealing from how forceful she was being with her motions.

She could feel the heat of Lance’s stare on her back, but she kept up her pace, unrelenting until she knew she was out of their view. He’d made it clear he’d chosen Allura first, so Pidge was only adapting to a situation _he_ created. She refused to let herself wallow and think about Lance and Allura having a good time laughing, sharing drinks, maybe him showing her that beautiful ledge overlooking the water.

Her throat tightened a bit in misery at the thought of him showing Allura the spot where he and Pidge had shared such a poignant moment, but she shoved it out of her mind.

“So… where do you want to start?” Hunk asked her, staring at the list that Coran had given them. “And are you going to spend the whole day with murder on your face? Because you’re cute, Pidge, but even your cuteness can’t keep that face from terrifying Qioleans.”

Pidge slowed her pace down once they were out of the Castle of Lions, a small smile on her lips as she turned around and walked backwards, facing Hunk. “Let’s just tackle each location in order from closest to the castle to farthest away. That way we’re not making unnecessary steps in several different directions.”

“Alright good call. So then up first for B group—that’s us—is “Magic Fingers” Qrawg, the Embroider who’s been making traditional Qiolean dresses his whole life. He makes all of the ceremonial garb by hand.” Hunk walked in front of her, reading the info from the list on his armour’s tech. “Legend states that he knows what all your measurements are just from looking at you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “If he even tries to mention mine, I’ll knock him out.”

“I’ll make sure to deflect. Last thing we need is bad publicity. Can you imagine the headline? Paladin gone wild: Voltron’s green paladin beats the shit out of a Qiolean elder.” Hunk chuckled, putting his arm out for her again which she took with a grin. “Well then. Shall we?”

“Let’s shall!” Pidge laughed gleefully, glad she’d made the choice to hang out with Hunk for the day. He was nosy, sure, but he also knew when to let things go or when not to approach certain topics. She was sure she’d have to field several questions about her and Lance’s issues if she partnered with Shiro or Coran for the day.

Their trek through the shops and restaurants went by swimmingly. Apparently, she and Hunk made a very good duo in meet and greets. Hunk was lovable with a disarming smile that melted their hearts while Pidge’s vast array of knowledge and fact dropping impressed the Qioleans and made them more confident that the Voltron paladins were actually worth believing in. They took pictures everywhere, making weird faces with Qioleans who joined in and enrapturing them with their foreign tech. From watching the jeweller make beaded jewels in an open fire to getting to taste samples of new dishes created at the food locations, she literally felt like they were on an amazing adventure, seeing new things and getting a chance to discover yet another world that she would have to place on her ever growing list of places to vacation at with her family. She was sure her mother would adore the quaint bookstore selling rare romance novels from all over the galaxy. Matt and her father would definitely be fans of that pawn shop that had been selling all sorts of weird gadgets and tech.

“Okay, this is the café that some old lady was telling us to try out yesterday!” Hunk said in excitement. “Can we please, please, please try it out?! I know it’s in Group A’s area, but I really want to try some of the food.”

“Hunk, how could I say no? Let’s stop for lunch here, and then continue on later.”

Hunk picked her up in a huge hug and swung her around. “You’re the best Pidge!”

Pidge really liked hanging out with Hunk. She normally went to Lance when she needed immediate cheering up just because he tended to come up with the goofiest adventures to get her happy again, plus he had their video games in his room, but Hunk was a very close second. He was naturally warm and giving and always gave fantastic advice. Plus, since most of her problems at the moment centred around _Lance_ , there really was no one _but_ Hunk that she could talk to. Maybe Keith, but he had a lot of other things to worry about like his Blade of Marmora tasks and she didn’t want to bother him. She just liked the way Hunk was perceptive and could usually figure out the brunt of her problems, and she never even had to say a word.

(And best of all, in his head was cotton candy, fluffy and warm, and filled with love and admiration for everything they were seeing instead of all the sex and perverted shit like Keith and Lance).

The café wasn’t that far from their location and after the head chef found out _the_ paladin Hunk, amateur food critic and food connoisseur was at his restaurant, he’d insisted that they try all the specials for free, provided that Hunk wrote a sincere article on his blog about the restaurant. Pidge certainly had no objections to free food, and before she knew it, they’d been whisked over to a lovely table outside under a gazeebo, comfortable and overlooking the street vendors in the area. This place was a little higher tier, and also less occupied than the previous market, but it wasn’t lacking in Qioleans taking walks, heading home, or just reading books on ledges. She liked the environment. It wasn’t bustling with restless energy, but it wasn’t secluded and dull either.

Hunk drew her out of her thoughts when he poked what seemed to be an omelette, only it was green and there were chunky blue things in it that looked like ham, but they were blue, so Pidge really didn’t know. “The irony of bird-humans serving eggs…”

Pidge cracked up, her laughter punctuated by snorts when she inhaled. She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her stomach with a happy sigh. She was beyond stuffed, although Hunk was pretty much steadily finishing everything brought out to them.

“This is too weird. Wouldn’t that mean we’re eating their droppings or something? How do they taste?”

Hunk took a careful bite, chewing thoughtfully with a frown, though he didn’t look disgusted. If anything, he looked a little confused. “Green…”

“How can something taste like a colour?” She snorted.

Her gaze drifted away from Hunk to look at the crowd of Qioleans doing afternoon shopping. And then caught sight of Lance walking by chatting with Allura, who had her arm linked up with his as she pointed excitedly to something in the distance. He had a bright, boyish grin on his face and simply put, the two of them looked like they were a couple. A few Qioleans in the café who’d also noticed them were also marvelling at how cute of a couple they made, even if they were weird looking foreigners.

Honestly, Lance looked like he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world, and it made Pidge’s smile drop right off her face. She’d forgotten that Lance and Allura were Group A. It made sense they might run into each other. If she’d thought it through from the get go, she could have avoided this entire scenario by not coming to this stupid café.

“Dammit…” she muttered under her breath, her mood turning sour in the blink of an eye.

Hunk didn’t respond immediately, but he hummed pensively. When she glanced back at him, he was scrutinising her carefully while sipping his drink slowly from the straw. Pidge felt her ears grow hot.

“What?” she said sheepishly, embarrassed at having been caught.

“Hmm, nothing.”

_If you’re that bothered, why don’t you just talk to Lance?_

“You obviously have something to say, Hunk. Just tell me,” she pressed a little impatiently. Originally, if she couldn’t read minds, she would have let it go, but that wasn’t the case.

“You were in a great mood until Lance and Allura passed by just now.” He pointed out, trying for an innocent look, but she could feel the uneasiness coming from him and knew he was poking the proverbial Pidge bear to see what she might say in response to the provocation.

“Because he’s being annoying and ignoring me and acting all pissy and mad at me and flirting with Allura when I literally didn’t do anything to him!”

“But why does the flirting with Allura bother you? That’s not outside his realm of usual behaviours,” Hunk continued while he prodded one of the blue chunks in his food, face looking a little too amused.

“It doesn’t,” she snapped.

_Then why’d you include the flirting as a reason?_

“It doesn’t bother me,” she insisted, piercing him with a narrow eyed glare, because even if she’d heard his thoughts, the look on his face more than told her that he didn’t believe her one bit. “What I’m annoyed about is why he’s so upset with me from yesterday. What did I even do to make him so mad?”

Hunk sighed, looking conflicted. “He cares about you a lot, Pidge.”

“That’s not an answer. I care about him a lot too, and he cares about you and Keith and Shiro and Allura and Coran a lot.”

 _Yeah, but not like you_.

“We all care about each other a lot,” she repeated gruffly, annoyed that Hunk would even dare think Lance would care any less about the others than her. Their whole group had been through so much shit together. Too much for any of them not to care for the others. “And yet, he’s only mad at me for some reason.”

Hunk shook his head in disappointment, but continued to eat, shoving a large chunk of his green eggs and blue ham into his mouth. “Look, if you really want to know what Lance is thinking, the best person to ask is Lance himself. There’s no reason to let this whole thing fester. Talk it out. I think you both probably have some misunderstandings you need to clear up, but that won’t happen if don’t talk.”

“Easier said than done…” she grumbled, slumping further in her chair just to be a little petulant.

She didn’t even know how to start said conversation with Lance. It wasn’t like she could just approach him and ask him why he was paying so much attention to Allura. At the end of the day, all the paladins were extremely close, so why wouldn’t Lance pay attention to her? Although Pidge was certain Lance had stronger feelings for the princess, even without them, he would still dote on the princess since she was the literal guiding light and heart of the paladins.

So maybe Pidge was being stupid and jealous, but she didn’t know what the hell was going on with her relationship with Lance, and it was frustrating her because every time she thought she and Lance were getting closer, he always reminded her that she was totally and completely wrong about them because he obviously was more interested in someone else. It pissed her off to no end.

“So what do you want to do next?” Hunk asked, changing the subject when he noticed Pidge was starting to stew in her own thoughts. “Coran mentioned we’d be attending some welcoming performance closer to the evening, but we only have five more places on our list. That’ll give us several varga before we reconvene.”

Honestly, Pidge wanted to relax on the ledge she’d discovered, but that spot would only serve to remind her of her current Lance situation. Somewhere just as calming would suffice. “Let’s go down to the beach. See what this orange water feels like.”

“Oooh. Sounds like a plan to me.”

Maybe putting her feet in the water would cool down her mood and relax her.

 

…

 

Only it was a very, _very_ bad idea.

It had been a feeling in her gut, the closer they got to the beach, that suddenly this was a very bad idea. Part of her had wanted to turn immediately, but Hunk had looked pretty excited and she hadn’t wanted to ruin his fun over random intuition. In retrospect, she should have listened to her body’s sudden aversion.

Because instead of clear skies, a beautiful vast array of orange water and a soft breeze blowing purple sand–like particles in the wind, she’d been greeted by clear skies, a beautiful vast array of orange water and a soft breeze blowing purple sand–like particles in the wind _and_ Lance talking to Allura about how much the waves were like the ones back home for him. She was excited, grinning widely and kicking the water around as the waves lapped at her naked feet like the gentle caresses of a lover.

It was a tender moment, Allura shining radiantly with childlike enthusiasm as she splashed a bit, and Lance watching her with fond affection when she grinned up at him. A larger wave came crashing towards them, but Allura was wearing one of her princess dresses instead of a battle suit so Lance grabbed her by the waist and quickly lifted her up before her nice clothes got soaked. Allura squealed at the sudden movement and rested her hands on his shoulders when he finally set her down. They both started laughing, entranced by whatever moment they were sharing between them.

And it _stung_.

It felt like Pidge’s heart was getting ripped out of her chest, and yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away from them. It was like a disastrous crash. Morbid curiosity kept her from doing the smart thing and looking away to give her heart a break. She was enraptured by something so painful, and yet, she could do nothing but stare at them helplessly, silhouetted by the gorgeous skies in the distance. Looking like a couple in love.

_Maybe one day I’ll get to take **her** to Varadero beach…_

It took the inkling of Lance’s thoughts brushing the precipice of her mind for Pidge to very quickly relax her hold on her mental control. She let a thousand other thoughts flood her at once from other Qioleans enjoying the calm beach just so she couldn’t hear whatever declaration of love Lance was probably mentally spewing to the princess.

Before she’d let all the thoughts in, Lance had started to think of one of his beaches back home. He was taking a pleasant stroll along the sand, holding hands, fingers intertwined, with someone beside him whose laughter was punctuated by snorts. Pidge had cut it off before it manifested fully in her mind, not interested in seeing him with Allura in his daydream.

Honestly, this planet was occupied with about 90% water, and there were ample beaches to go to. So why the heck was the universe conspiring to bring her as much pain as possible by making her end up at the same exact beach at the same exact time as the very person she was trying not to see at the moment?

Even Hunk was grimacing apologetically. “Hey, wanna go somewhere else?”

She nodded quickly, blinking rapidly to stop the tears from forming in her eyes. He curled an arm around her shoulders and they turned around, heading back towards where they’d come.

What the hell was she doing pining over Lance? She’d known when she first realised she’d started crushing on him hard that he was head over heels for the Princess. She’d known damn well that no matter what her own feelings towards Lance were, he would always be interested in someone else. He’d look at every other girl before he even noticed she was there, not to mention Pidge suspected every other girl in the world would have to be dead before he would ever flirt with her.

(Not that she wanted to deal with his grotesque, corny pickup lines, but it would have been nice if he saw her as an attractive person to flirt with for once).

This was exactly why she never wanted to fall for his stupid ass in the first place.

Damn her fucking hormones.

And damn him for having a smile that made her heart go a mile a minute.

“You know…” Hunk started slowly, once they had climbed back up the stone steps that would return them to the market and had put ample distance between themselves and Lance and Allura, “Lance likes to look at beautiful things. He can’t help it since he likes watching art, and he sees a gorgeous girl as art, so he can’t help but look at—”

“Hunk. What’s your point?” She snapped a little too sharply. She felt bad taking it out on Hunk, but she was in a very foul mood. And what he was implying wasn’t helping.

“My point is, he looks around, but ummm…” Hunk was deliberating his words carefully, brows scrunched up in concentration. “There’s only one girl for him in his heart.”

Pidge’s nose wrinkled. What was he trying to say? That Lance would always only love Allura?

“Hunk, I’m kind of done talking about this.” And done with feeling like her heart was going to break into a million pieces. “Can we move on?”

“Okay. Sorry.” He sighed, looking over his shoulder once before sighing again.

She was actually glad she’d somewhat confirmed with Hunk her crush on Lance because for the rest of their time out visiting shops, he’d spent all his efforts trying to keep her mind off of the scene on the beach by occupying her with all sorts of adventures on the planet. It was a kind gesture, and one that she accepted wholeheartedly by trying to immerse herself in Qiolean culture and listen to what the inhabitants were telling them about their lifestyle.

(Fun Fact: Qioleans who had the gene for childbirthing were the only ones who could have children. Males laid eggs, but females had live births. She didn’t bother asking how that worked as far as the structure of their reproductive systems went because she was _certain_ it would give her nightmares).

They avoided places that intersected with or were close to A Group visitation spots, and anytime she felt her mind drifting towards the Lance Situation, she very quickly allowed herself access to people’s minds around them, no matter how annoying.

(Like the Qiolean who’d been walking nearby them who was trying to deliberate whether she should run away with the attractive rich noble who wanted to marry her or stay behind with her boyfriend since childhood. And the other one that was looking for people to scam).

Thankfully, before the group met back up at the central market, she and Hunk had managed to find Shiro and Coran. While Hunk and Coran compared notes and discussed what they’d found and learned, Pidge had taken Shiro aside to let him know that she wouldn’t be attending the performance by the townsfolk. She’d said she was more interested in finishing up the translations to better prepare for her recon mission (which wasn’t a _total_ lie), but it was mostly because she really didn’t want to be near Lance. She was scared of what she’d find in his head, especially since she couldn’t block all thoughts. She’d left it up to Shiro to tell the others because she really wasn’t feeling like having to explain her reasons and then hear what they thought about her ditching.

Shiro didn’t say anything to her, just placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently to let her know he wouldn’t press, but he was there for her if she needed him. With that, she bid the three adieu. Hunk’s mind projected an image of him baking some cookies and bringing it to her later, and she mentally made a note to get Hunk a super awesome present for being a damn good friend.

Pidge was pretty sure her expression was permanently stuck looking troubled, but luckily she didn’t run into anyone she would have to talk to on her way back to her castle room to change. Which was perfect because the last thing she wanted was to be questioned why she looked so down. With a sigh, Pidge pulled on something old and ratty and then left to go work in the lab. The only thing that could get her to forget her pain and irritation was immersing herself in her work.

 

…

 

A little after the start time of the performance, Pidge had gone to take a nap in her room. When she’d gotten back to the lab, most everyone had probably already had dinner but Hunk had left her some cookies at her work bench along with porridge and a note telling her to feel better.

He’d also done some more of her translation work on the files to help speed up the process. Some parts of his translations looked a little rough and his diction and wording was different than hers, but it was good enough that Pidge knew it would get the job done. He’d even left her little notes on parts he didn’t believe he’d done so well that might need some revision and as let her know which parts he’d skipped that were too much effort for him. He was more of a mechanic than a tech person, but he’d done a fine job advancing her work and now there wasn’t too much left for the files. Spending the rest of the evening by herself focused on her work had definitely been exactly what Pidge needed to get the less than stellar afternoon out of her mind. With a grin, Pidge rolled up her sleeves and got back to work.

Pidge had been so focused on her work that she didn’t notice when the doors to the lab slid open and Lance walked in. It wasn’t until he cleared his throat that she finally lifted her head from her tinkering and realised that he was there.

“Pidge.”

And that they were alone.

Lance was watching her with an indiscernible look in his blue eyes, waiting for her to say anything and looking distinctly put out. Pidge swallowed hard, licking her suddenly dry lips and trying to control her fingers from shaking. Dammit. She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. It would have been awesome for her special ability to kick in at that moment so she could know what was going through his mind, but it remained mum. Panicking a bit, Pidge dropped her gaze back to her work, unsure how to approach this whole scenario.

“So I was right. You’re ignoring me and avoiding me now,” Lance muttered sullenly, shuffling further into the lab with his hands stuffed in his pockets and a sour look on his face. “You skipped the performance, you skipped dinner, and now you’re hiding out here when usually we all hang out in the lounge.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m trying to get important work done,” she responded tartly, shrugging indifferently and very sharply feeling a spark of irritation at his accusations. If anything, _he_ was avoiding _her_. “And anyway, you went out of your way to avoid partnering with me this morning. Shouldn’t you be on your date with Allura?”

Petty, but those had been his words, and she was irritated.

“I was never avoiding you. But you made it clear you had no intention of talking to me this morning,” he responded instead, voice tight and sounding like he was trying to keep his cool. “And you definitely didn’t bother saying anything when you came to the beach, so…”

She tensed and stopped working, taking a deep shuddering breath before looking up and giving him the most foul eyed glare she could muster.

“That’s _not_ fair. You made no attempts to try to talk to me this morning either! Don’t pretend like I was the only one not saying anything! And you seemed a little busy at the beach so I didn’t want to interrupt your fun. Plus if you saw us, why didn’t _you_ say anything then?”

A spark of irritation glinted in Lance’s eyes. “Because you left before I could even call out your name! By the time I noticed you were there, you and Hunk turned tail and ran!”

_Ran off like it made you sick to look at me or something…_

Frustration clung to Lance’s mind in a vice grip, and she could tell from the way his jumbled thoughts radiated the irritation that he’d been aggravated pretty much the entire day, even when hanging out with Allura. It confused her to no end. Wouldn’t he be ecstatic about his afternoon with Allura? From what she could make out of the mess in his mind, he’d had (and still had) something very specific that upset him persisting in his mind that he hadn’t been able to get rid of. She couldn’t make out the subject of his frustrated thoughts though.

“That’s because…” Pidge huffed and looked back down at the work spread out on her table with a conflicted frown. “Forget it.”

Hunk had told her to talk this out with Lance, but this was going nowhere fast, and there was nothing she could say to alleviate this tension short of telling him straight up that she had feelings for him. And even that couldn’t end well because he would turn her down and their entire friendship would be ruined.

“I don’t get you. Why are you… Sometimes you act like we…” Lance stopped, opened his mouth, stopped again, ran a hand through his hair in vexation, before he finally settled on some words to try again. “Do you really enjoy Keith’s company that much?”

_More than mine?_

“Where is this coming from?” She answered crossly, annoyed that he brought that shit up again from out of nowhere. He wasn’t making much sense and his accusatory tone was pissing her off even more because whatever the heck had happened between her and Lance for them to be fighting, this was _his_ fault. He was the one who’d been acting like a complete moron over nothing. If this was still about the Keith recon mission, he really needed to piss off and let it go, because now she was getting pissed all over again and that coupled with her heartache from seeing his date with Allura was definitely not a good combination. “I can have more than one friend I care about or did you forget that humans are dynamic creatures capable of forming multiple complex relationships? Keith is my friend, just like you’re my friend! Or at least I thought you were, but the way you’ve been acting recently is making me seriously reconsider if this friendship is even worth it!”

It was harsh and awful, and Pidge knew just how awful she’d been as it echoed around the room like a haunting reminder. She immediately clapped a hand over her mouth. That was _not_ what she'd been trying to say.

Lance didn’t react much at first, staring at her wide eyed like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just heard. But then he let out a short, incredulous breath, wincing, and Pidge had to avert her gaze because _quiznak_ , Lance looked like a kicked puppy and it was melting her anger away fast and breaking her heart. He looked so damaged and knowing she was the cause made her feel guilty. She was mad at him, sure, but her anger was stemming from his feelings for Allura, and that wasn’t fair to him. He couldn’t help who he loved.

She pushed her chair back and rose to her feet immediately, needing desperately to take it back somehow, wishing she could go back in time and stop it from leaving her mouth. “Lance, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“No, you’re right. I’ve been acting like an ass.” Lance looked away with a sigh, licking his lips as his expression twisted into something bitter. “I’m sorry.”

Pidge’s eyes widened in horror. Her words were still ringing loud and clear in his head, intermingling with his own insecurity and feelings of worthlessness. He was starting to think that she meant that _he_ wasn’t worth it. In one fell swoop, her need to fight with Lance was wiped clear by the slump of his shoulders and the defeated look in his eyes.

He turned away, smiling in an odd way that looked much more like a grimace. “I’ll just… I’ll leave you alone then. Sorry.”

And panic settled in her heart at the resignation rolling off of him in waves. He was truly thinking he’d ruined the friendship and was figuring out plans of how to continue on being a paladin of Voltron with Pidge no longer acknowledging him. How they would have to return each other’s shared stuff in packed boxes. Who would get to keep the video games. His thoughts even led him to creating a scenario where Coran was the family court judge for Kaltenecker’s child custody case complete with a full agreement for visitation rights after a friendship divorce. It would have been _funny_ , except that Lance wholeheartedly was ready to never talk to her again if that was what she wanted.

Why was this idiot so damn dramatic?

Pidge pushed away from her desk with a roll of her eyes and rushed over to the doors of her lab to block his exit, spreading her arms out with a frown on her face. Lance was a good head and a half taller than her and much broader and could easily pick her up and move her out of the way if he wanted to, but he stopped walking anyway and stared down at her with a guarded look in his eyes, his face carefully blank.

“Lance, I don’t _want_ you to leave me alone. Our friendship is very important to me, and what I said came from a place of anger. I didn’t mean it at all, and I care so much about you!” Pidge inhaled deeply and let it all out slowly, her face burning red. She had to make things right, even if she could hear her heart pounding like a drum in her ear and only hoped he couldn’t hear it too. “You’re my best friend, Lance. You cheer me up when I’m down and you’re the only one who really gets my weird sense of humour and matches it to T and you’re my enabler and I can always count on you to get into goofy hijinks with me! You mean so much to me and your friendship _is_ worth it, alright? I lied because I was trying to hurt you. Don’t ask me why, I’m seriously still trying to figure out why I even said that shit in the first place. Let’s just put this all past us and hang out like we normally do. Let’s play video games like always and make fun of each other and act like dummies like always.”

I need you, she wanted to say. But that would probably be venturing a little too far into her feelings for him territory and she wasn’t planning to reveal all that.

His cheeks flushed with a bit of red and she could see the beginnings of a dopey smile on his face, but he still didn’t look fully convinced. “You don’t have to do me any favours, you know? I’ll be fine.”

“What?”

Then she noticed the playful twinkle in his eyes and realised he was kind of joking.

“God, you are such a…” Pidge shook her head, scoffing in incredulity and then chuckling a bit to herself. “Lance, I’m not breaking up our friendship over some stupid argument, okay? I was mad at something dumb and took it out on you. I’m sorry. You don’t deserve that. So can we please put this past us? We shouldn’t be fighting over something that’s not even important.”

Some odd vibe she picked up from his mind told her he didn’t agree with something she’d said and wasn’t quite over whatever it was that had him so frustrated in the first place, but he nodded nonetheless. She let out a sigh of relief that he was agreeing to move past it too. Lance was stubborn when he wanted to be, but he wasn’t going to let this be the argument that ruined them or something.

Lance usual joking, smarmy flirt face appeared on his face, and he waggled his eyebrows. “So then… my place tonight?”

“Dork…” Pidge cracked a grin and shoved him playfully as she moved past him to get back to her work. “I’ll stop by in like three varga. I just need to get the rest of the files translated then I’ll be done.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He gave her a thumbs up as he walked out of the lab.

“Make sure to clean up your room too so I don’t have to deal with your filthy boy stink,” she called out.

The thumbs up shifted to a middle finger.

 

…

 

“Game, set, match, sucker! I win again!”

Pidge whooped loudly, rising to her knees and tossing her hands in the air and doing a lame little victory dance. Pidge stuck her tongue out at Lance, pointing a finger at him and totally rubbing it in his face that she had beaten him, not once, not twice, but _three_ times in a row with the same character. Lance groaned in exasperation, knowing she was never going to let him live it down.

“This is really getting kind of sad, Lance. Sure you don’t want to quit before you end up doing my laundry for the rest of the year?”

“You only won cuz you _obviously_ cheated.” Lance swatted her finger out of his face playfully, leaning back against his bed post and kicking his long legs out. “You can’t just spam your special attack over and over.”

Pidge snorted derisively, grabbing a handful of the crunchy beignet-like snack filled with Altean food goo that Hunk had concocted for the hangout. He’d stopped by Lance’s earlier with the plate of snacks since she’d invited him to join them to play video games. Hunk had made some stupid comment about not wanting to get in the way of their midnight date and left with an annoying suggestive wink at her. In spite of that, she was really happy for what he’d made them because it was amazing.

“Says who? Don’t be a sore loser, and just admit I’m better at video games than you are.”

“You’re definitely better at cheating than I am.” He grinned in amusement, grabbing some of the snacks and popping one in his mouth. “Anyway, I let you win.”

“Awww.” Pidge pushed out her lower lip in a mocking pout, talking down to him in an extra sugary sweet voice dripping with sarcasm. “I totally made you my bitch and now wittle Wancey is upset.”

“Eat a dick, Pidge.” He laughed though, and there was no heat to his words. Lance laid his head back against his crumpled comforter with a yawn and rested his arms behind his head. “I forgot how incorrigible you are. I thought Matt had been exaggerating when he said you literally are the most annoying gamer to ever exist.”

“Don’t feel bad, Lance.  I mean, you stood no chance.” She squeezed his shoulder consolingly, giving him a look as if she sympathised with his plight. “I’m just… perfect.”

Lance tilted his head sideways and smiled softly at her as he watched her gloat. “Yeah… you are…”

_I wouldn’t change a single thing about you._

Pidge’s next teasing insults died in her throat, and her heart stuttered, cheeks flushing with heat. He was watching her like she was the only person that mattered in his world, and it made butterflies dance wildly in her stomach. Pidge chuckled somewhat awkwardly, taking her hand off of him and looking away with a frown worrying her brow. She tried to keep her anxiousness from seeping into her laughter, but he was supposed to trash talk back so they could keep the banter going, not flip the script without warning and make her feel all tingly and warm inside. Lance was a flirt though, so she wouldn’t be surprised if this was his method of throwing her off her game.

(Though she wouldn’t dare give him any indication that _yes_ , it was definitely working).

“S-so… Do you want to play again?” She quickly changed the subject to alleviate the awkward tension, scooting sideways on her knees just a little so she could put a tiny bit more space between the two of them. A nervous habit, Pidge tugged out her scrunchie and shook out her hair from its ponytail, ruffling a hand through it to clear out any tangles. “C’mon, double or nothing. I’d really like to have a few days free from doing chores…”

She turned with a smile and once again, Pidge found herself speechless, frozen in place by the intensity of Lance’s gaze on her. He was watching her with a very distinct look in his eyes, burning with heat, that suddenly made the room grow very hot. She’d seen him give all kinds of dorky smoulders and flirty looks to people he was flirting with, but she’d _never_ seen an expression like that on his face and certainly never directed towards her. A very heavy ripple of fire travelled down her back and pooled in her lower abdomen.

 “…Lance?” she asked, her treasonous breath hitching in her chest from the shock of attraction she felt coming from him.

They were caught in a moment, searching each other’s eyes like they didn’t know what to do next. It really wouldn’t take too much for either of them to lean forward and close that gap between their lips and for a beat there, she nearly almost did. Pidge had to force herself to stop short-circuiting and _stop_ staring at his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed. But making eye contact seemed like the worse of the two evils.

The dark lighting of the room made his eyes seem deeper, darker, a lot more dangerous, and suddenly, Pidge grew very aware that they were just a guy and a girl alone in a dark room sitting way too close together. It wasn’t like they’d never had late night, one-on-one hang sessions in each other’s rooms before, but this one felt different.

Something restless was buzzing in the air just waiting to snap.

Pidge pulled the straps of her tank top further up her shoulder, growing self-conscious about her state of dress. So maybe she could have worn a pair of pyjama pants instead of shorts and maybe a tank top that wasn’t so large, loose on her frame, and showing a hella ton of skin, but this was _Lance_. They’d never really needed to worry about that before. After all, she wasn’t his preferred type.

Right?

“Lance?” she repeated, a little more firm this time.

Lance straightened and blinked as if he was trying to pull himself out of a trance. “Oh. Yeah, sorry. I missed what you, uh, asked.”

Pidge licked her lips nervously, though she promptly aborted the motion midway when Lance’s gaze dropped down to her lips. “I was just asking you if you wanted to up the ante.”

His eyes widened a bit and she caught the distinct flush of pink along his cheekbones. “What? Up what ante?”

“For the video game,” she clarified, her gaze darting everywhere except his face.

“Oh.” He cleared his throat and turned back to face the screen with a slow, terse nod. “Yeah. Sure.”

Pidge sat back on her heels, trying to will her wildly beating heart to cease its hyperactivity while Lance used his controller to restart the game and set up the settings they usually played on when they had their matches. She felt lightheaded and dazed and leaned back against his bedpost for stability. Lance leaned forward to lower the volume a bit, but when he sat back, his hand brushed against her thigh and the contact made them both jump.

The match started, but Lance’s playing was much more abysmal than normal, and Pidge was about to make some comment about how his crappy playing would end with him losing the wager yet again, but her plans were promptly interrupted when an image of Lance’s room from his thoughts suddenly entered her mind.

Oddly, she recognised the scenario because it was exactly the same as the one that was going on at the moment. The video game screen, the darkened room, AC whirring gently in the background. She’d thought it was Lance just pondering their current game, but then she started to notice the various articles of clothing strewn about. Clothes she recognised. _Pidge’s_ tank top hanging off the projecting screen, Lance’s t-shirt flung on his desk, her pyjama shorts covering the gaming system.

Anticipation hit her as hard as the anxiety that spread through her as the scene revealed itself, and when she realised what she was seeing, she could barely breathe.

The only light illuminating the bodies against the bed post was from the screen, and though the details of the girl’s underwear were fuzzy (and in fact, she was wearing something fairly seductive and lacy), the long, wavy brown hair just a touch shy of tangled was unmistakeable.

Without a doubt, that was _her_.

In Lance’s daydream, Pidge was straddling his lap, matching his thrusts in a slow, hypnotic rhythm that had her gasping for breath, groaning softly into his mouth as they kissed with a hungry urgency. She had her arms wound around him, clinging to him desperately with one hand carding through his hair and the other splayed on his back as he embedded himself deeply inside her. It was all harsh breathing and soft moans and the desperate desire to reach their peaks. His hands roamed across her skin, gripping her thighs, caressing her ass, trailing skilled fingers up her waist and sliding under her bra to knead her breasts.

The game they were playing went largely forgotten, and Pidge stopped mashing buttons as her heart rate picked up.

That was definitely her gasping in ecstasy as she arched into him and threw her head back and that was definitely Lance’s uneven, breathless gasps into her skin and that was definitely her voice she heard crying out Lance’s name as this overwhelming need to reach her blinding release overtook her. He tangled a hand in her hair, exposing her neck further and kissed a wet, languid path to her ear before murmuring “come for me, _mi cielito_ ” all hot and ragged in her ear and biting on her lobe.

“ _What the hell?!_ ” Pidge screeched as she shot to her feet, accidentally flinging the game controller so hard it flew and hit the screen head on. It went largely ignored as her face burned with wild heat.

“What?! Is there some galactic bug in here?!” Lance also shouted, jumping up to his feet and looking around wildly as the thoughts disappeared immediately.

Pidge stared up at him, chewing on her thumbnail and heart pounding so hard in her chest she thought it was going to burst right out of her rib cage. Against her better judgement, she glanced down at Lance’s crotch and sure enough, he was pitching a slight tent through his pyjama pants. She didn’t give him enough of a chance to notice that she’d noticed and very quickly took a large step back when he took a worried step towards her.

His brows furrowed in confusion. “Pidge, what’s wrong?”

Lance had been daydreaming that they were…

She’d personally felt the white hot lightning that had spurred on sharp ripples of arousal from his words in her ear. The space between her thighs was also on fire, begging to be touched to release her from the sudden coiling in her abdomen. It was bad enough that Lance had been thinking of sex _with her_ , but now she couldn’t get the idea of sex _with him_ out of her mind too. She couldn’t get the sound of his voice muttering in Spanish out of her mind, deep and velvet and rich like chocolate. She couldn’t get over how he’d touched her in his daydream, skilfully and stroking her body gently like he was trying to engrain it in his memory.

“You… you…!” Was all she could say, pointing her shaking finger at him. Lance frowned, concerned, and Pidge quickly rectified her expression, shaking her head rapidly and clearing her throat. “I need some air.”

“Are you okay? Need me to come with you?” he asked, voice a little too gravelly, eyes a little too half-lidded and some kind of unabashed want still lingering in his gaze. He was still thinking about it, only this time it was even more pronounced because he was looking at her directly.

With a start, she realised the reason his thoughts kept going _there_ was because she was barely clothed and he could see her bra down shirt and apparently her hair was dishevelled and tumbling in a mess around her and the flush on her face made her look like she’d just got done having a roll in the hay and now he couldn’t stop thinking about the two of them fucking hard on his bed and what it would feel like being inside her and she was going to _freak_ if she stayed in this room any longer.

 “You _stay_ here!” she ordered before hightailing it out the room as fast as she possibly could go, leaving Lance standing there blinking in confusion. “I’ll be back.”

Pidge ran and ran in earnest and didn’t stop running until she was in the corridor to Green’s hangar. Only then, when her lungs felt like they were about to split, did she finally look at a window at her reflection. She wasn’t surprised that she was tomato red, but was surprised that Lance’s thoughts had gotten her turned on beyond belief. Her panties were even annoyingly just so slightly wet, and it was all because he’d been so intense in his desires it had clouded her own mind until it was all she could think about too.

Lance wanted to kiss her until she was panting for breath. He wanted to see what she would look like with pink, swollen, kiss-satiated lips, a flush on her face as he slowly pulled her tank top up and off her body. That much was obvious, but it was what she was feeling hidden deep down in his thoughts—something too strong and intense to be just _lust_ —that scared her because she had no idea what that was and now that she’d thought about it, it was usually always lingering somewhere in Lance’s thoughts whenever he spoke to Pidge. She couldn’t decipher it and this whole mess was starting to frustrate her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Green chuckled in amusement, and Pidge flipped her off mentally.

Pidge walked the rest of the way down the bridge and headed over to Green, sitting on her paw and using her lion’s calm, steadfast nature to help cool her head so she could make sense of her thoughts.

The sheer _want_ spilling from him in droves wouldn’t leave her mind. She felt all tingly and excited and restless and apprehensive and kind of scared, and she couldn’t stop thinking about what it would actually feel like to be pressed up against him, feeling him moving in her. Even in their Galaxy Garrison days, she’d always seen Lance as attractive, and by their two year mark as paladins started seeing him as sexy, but she’d never really ventured more than once or twice on what it would be like to really _be_ with Lance. Clearly though, _he_ was clearly thinking about this kind of stuff at length to conjure up such detail in his thoughts. He had to be! No one had sexy daydreams about friends they weren’t at least attracted to, right?

She didn’t know what to do, because as much as she liked Lance, she didn’t know if she was ready to pursue a relationship with him or anything. She and Lance worked so well because they were extremely compatible friends with similar interests and the same sense of humour. Pursuing a relationship could seriously jeopardise that plus their duties as paladins were more important than possibly ruining a connection needed to properly form Voltron. But that still didn’t explain what the hell she should do about Lance and his perverted desire to have her. She couldn’t figure out _why_. Had he just been hormonal because it was late and she was scantily clad? But that didn’t explain what that other feeling had been that didn’t feel the same way the lust dripping in his thoughts did.

Her thoughts were turning circles, and Pidge groaned, bringing her knees up to her chest and burying her face in them. Something soothing and soft rubbed her back and she accepted the apologetic gesture from her lion, knowing Green hadn’t found the situation earlier amusing, but rather Pidge’s freaked out reaction to Lance’s dirty daydream.

“You saw it too, Green. Do you think that was normal?”

Green’s poke felt like a shrug, although Pidge did catch her saying that sometimes when one was too close to something, they often missed obvious signs.

(Which helped very little because she’d extricated herself from his room in the first place to think).

Green chuckled again, sighing in exasperation and told her she ought to just go to bed and worry about it some other time when she wasn’t so narrow minded. Pidge didn’t get what Green was getting at, but she patted her lion gently in a gesture to say goodnight and left the lion’s hangar.

She didn’t feel like heading to her room just yet though, and she was certain that going to bed would only lead to a sleepless night of tossing and turning as she thought about what happened. And she definitely wasn’t going back to Lance’s because she was sure if she did, she’d do something stupid. The way she saw it, her best option would be to go to the lab and tinker with some new projects she’d started working on. Tech usually always cheered up her mood and helped her figure out what she needed to do about situations that gave her trouble.

As she passed the docking bay, Keith had just parked his pod and was hopping out of the driver seat, looking a little tired in the eyes and kind of scuffed up, but otherwise no different than normal after his missions.

“Hey Keith,” she called out, waving to him.

His attention called, he changed direction and headed over to where she was standing by the stairs leading out of the docks and back to the main castle.

“I got the microscope, but it’s late. You’re still awake?” He removed his face mask and pulled the hood off of his head, leaning back against one of the railings of the stairs with his head tilted curiously. He ran a hand through his ruffled hair to smooth down the parts sticking up. “You look really flustered. You alright?”

He looked and sounded innocent enough with the question, but his thoughts wandered and he was thinking if her current state of dress meant she’d hooked up with someone earlier.

If Keith had just arrived, had seen her, and had come up with conclusions that she looked like fresh sex, then she couldn’t even begin to imagine what Lance had been thinking all night. She’d only caught the tail end of Lance’s pervy thoughts though. What if that had been on his mind since she’d arrived earlier that night? That could explain why he’d sucked so bad during earlier rounds.

“Urgh…” Pidge groaned, sliding down to her feet and sitting on the stairs with her face buried in the crevice her folded arms made on her knees. This mind reading shit had been kind of fun at first, but now it was starting to become exhausting. She was constantly seeing and hearing things she wasn’t supposed to know which meant she had all this information to process that she didn’t understand. Pidge was a scientist who _needed_ logical answers and this mind reading thing provided the exact opposite. “Why is life so confusing?”

Keith chuckled at her dramatics, but slowly sank down to sit beside her, nearly soundless in his movements that if she didn’t see the purple of his uniform, she would have thought he wasn’t even there.

“Need to talk about it?” he prodded gently, nudging her side and waiting patiently as she stewed in her thoughts.

Would it be wise to let Keith in on her little secret? On the one hand, having someone who knew of her plight might make dealing with everything she learned and dissecting the information a lot easier. Two heads usually worked better than one. But on the other hand, if she told him about the mind reading, she’d have to explain when it started and how, and he’d likely make the connection with the thing she’d broken and her allergic reaction and it would just get complicated because if he thought she was in danger of becoming ill, he would definitely tell their leader.

She opted for no. Something told her it would be best to just keep it to herself.

“Keith, what would you do if hypothetically… you found out one of your best…” she paused, tapering off with a frown when Keith’s expression shifted minutely and he started to look calculating. If she wasn’t careful with her words, he’d figure out context and make the necessary jumps to figure out who she was talking about. She started again. “Let’s just say you found out Shiro had sex dreams about you. How would you react?”

Well… she’d finally found the thing that could make Keith lose his nonchalant composure, because it took less than a tick for his face to turn bright red. He choked on his own spit, coughing into his fist and briefly panicking with wide indigo eyes. He was projecting some very happy and hopeful vibes in his thoughts though.

_Did Shiro have a dream about me?!_

While Pidge did find amusement in watching their usually calm and collected red paladin lose his cool over an innocuous question, she quickly tried to rectify her statement. She’d forgotten that Keith’s crush on Shiro was a perfectly kept secret no one could ever detect. She couldn’t get his hopes up for no reason.

“I mean, just hypothetical situation, you know,” she quickly clarified dismissively before Keith got too excited. “Shiro’s never said anything, but I was just wondering what you would think about that kind of situation. You know. Since you guys are really close friends and all.”

He pondered over his answer for a while, finally settling on something that made the tips of his ears turn red. “I guess I would be flattered he saw me that way but I would wonder where it came from. He’d never shown particular interest directly… so _why_ is the question here.”

(His thoughts said he would try to seduce Shiro though).

But that was right. Lance never showed any interest in Pidge. Hell, she was still convinced he was in love with Allura, and like Hunk had said earlier, Lance liked to look at beautiful girls. So somehow, maybe he’d found her briefly cute during their hangout, but the dirty thoughts could only have been because he was horny. Lance was a 19 year old guy in his prime, and though she’d never really talked about dating or relationships or even sex in the past with him at length, she was aware that he probably had some sort of needs.

But she’d figure it out now: Lance _wasn’t_ into Pidge like that. It was because she’d shown up in his dark room late at night in a small tank top and some ratty shorts and most likely fuelled fantasies he he’d never carried out. Any guy would jump to thoughts of sex, but Lance was literally in love with Allura. He’d made that pointedly clear that afternoon. It still disheartened Pidge, but it was important for her to make that distinction sooner rather than later and get her heart broken.

She let out the breath she’d been holding, a little disappointed, but otherwise feeling like she could rest a lot more easily. “Thanks, Keith.”

“So what’s this question all about?”

“Nothing.” She shrugged, trying to keep her expression unaffected. “Just had a really weird dream.”

Not totally a lie.

“Okay.” He cracked a small smirk, pulling a tablet out of his travel sack. “If you have anything else you need advice for, just ask me and I’ll pretend I’m listening.”

Yeah he wouldn’t be listening. Because he’d probably be imagining getting fucked by Shiro the whole time.

Instead, she said, “Do you mind if I chill with you here for a bit. I’m just… not going to be able to sleep. Too much on my mind.”

“I don’t mind. I have to write my debriefing report to Kolivan anyway.” Keith got comfortable on his perch and set to work on writing the report. “When I’m done, we can go move the microscope.”

Pidge inhaled deeply and let it out slowly, yawning into her hand and wondering how her life had gotten so complicated in one fell swoop. Although if she thought about it, it was all related to Lance.

Her musings were interrupted by images bouncing uninvited into her head of Keith being fucked hard in the ass from behind, hilt deep, by Shiro. Apparently, Keith was being pressed up against a wall in the Galra base where he had his covert mission while some Galra patrolled nearby enough that they could possibly hear them if they were too loud, but not close enough that they could see the obvious debauchery occurring right around the corner.

Keith was sucking on two of Shiro’s fingers, forced to stay quiet while Shiro’s other hand pumped Keith’s dick leisurely at a pace too slow and frustrating for Keith although he couldn’t do anything about it. Keith was trying not to moan, but even Pidge knew it was futile from the way Shiro had him completely and totally at his whim.

“This is your last warning. If you make a sound again, I’ll stop.” Shiro growled in his ear in that same sexy authoritative tone as when he was leading the Voltron paladins.

DreamKeith shuddered, barely stopping himself from releasing another moan from being dominated completely.

Scowling, Pidge gave up trying to block it and just let the porn-y story in Keith’s head provide her entertainment as she tried to calm herself down enough to attempt going to sleep. But seriously. She was going to bang her head against a wall if she was forced to watch one more of Keith’s pervy thoughts.

But first things first, she would have to start setting invisible boundaries with Lance. It sucked, but if he was going to be imagining having sex with Pidge during their game nights, something had to change, whether the location or the time they played and what she wore hanging out with him.

Hopefully she’d be able to come up with a good excuse to Lance as to why she would suddenly want to start playing their video games in the lounge.


	4. Chapter 4

In the end, Pidge and Keith both decided to put their current state of alertness to good use by making some headway in the lab with the reverse engineering.

Originally, her plan had been to just go back to her room and chill after moving the rather large, oddly shaped microscope, but she and Keith ended up spending the rest of the evening working in the lab. Since they both were up and neither was particularly interested in going to sleep, they’d gotten to work locating and extracting the Galra nano-weapon from the fabric of her gloves. Through careful work and ample patience (to which Keith had repeated ‘patience yields focus’ to her so many times she briefly considered locking _him_ in a containment chamber until morning), they’d managed to transfer her gloves to the stage of the microscope and isolate the miniscule particles stuck to the fabric. Metal didn’t react with the particle so they’d stuck to using makeshift metal plates, tongs, tubes, and flasks in order to hold the three grains.

The next step had been to create the solution, but it’d been hard work because she wasn’t quite sure how the nano grain would react to certain solvents, and they’d ended up having to sacrifice one and cut it with a precise thin metal razor to test the pieces in various liquid to see the reactions. Distilled water was a no go and bubbled up, indicating possible combustible reactions. Ethanol and alcohol-like solvents were also not useful as they reacted with the piece of the weapon and formed clumps in the media. In the end, they’d decided any oxygenated solvents were likely to spur some sort of dangerous reaction with the nanotech. They settled on one of the remaining grains of the weapon being dissolved into an inorganic protogenic Altean solvent while the other they placed in a halogenic solution.

Keith didn’t know much of the techy, science-y side of things and was more of an assistant to her the whole time, often just jotting notes down while she worked, but she didn’t mind the company. His calm demeanour was a welcome distraction from the intensity of what Lance’s tumultuous thoughts had been.

(Which she still couldn’t get out of her head, dammit).

It was more chemistry than Pidge had ever done in her life and by the time they’d tested all the physical and chemical properties of the liquid solutions and put them in a mass spectrometer for analysis, dawn had long broken and every sentence they spoke was punctuated by a yawn. The spectrometer had probably belonged to one of the Altean castle chemists back when Alfor was alive and being unused for nearly ten thousand deca-pheobs, was ridiculously slow and laboured on in its scan. They had no idea how long chemical analysis could take and ultimately decided to call it a night and skip breakfast to catch up on sleep. Hopefully the results would be ready in the afternoon.

Pidge was so excited about the advancements they’d made that she’d nearly forgotten her dilemma from the previous night. In fact, it never even crossed her mind what her absence would seem like to Lance until she was on her way to the morning meeting, nearly ran into him, and was greeted by a careful blank look that leaned towards standoffish.

“So what happened last night?” Lance questioned as he fell into step beside her. He looked and sounded visibly annoyed. “You just up and disappeared and never came back.”

She cursed under her breath, a little flustered at seeing him, and realised that she _had_ told him she’d be back and promptly never returned. Apparently, he’d sat there waiting for a while, played a couple rounds against the AI by himself before he’d given up and gone to bed extremely frustrated. Pidge knew he was exercising patience at the moment because his mind was cluttered with all sorts of irritated questions he refrained from asking. But honestly, what was she supposed to say? ‘I read your mind and you apparently wanted to screw me so I took off and I ended up working in the lab because I was avoiding you.’ That would definitely not go over well.

“Pidge?” His expression shifted to one of slight concern when she still hadn’t responded. He patted her face with the flat of his hand, and Pidge couldn’t help the heat exploding on her cheeks. She was reminded of the way Lance had stroked her skin in his daydream. “You’ve been acting kinda spacey since last night. You okay?”

“I’m, uh…” She wracked her brain for anything to say to get out of this awkward situation. “I had explosive diarrhoea last night and got kind of sick.”

Smooth, Pidge…

“Oh.” Lance blinked in silent horror, but thankfully, he didn’t press. “Wow. Are you… uh, better?”

“Yeah. It was pretty bad. I think I may have had an allergic reaction to Hunk’s snacks.” A shitty lie, and she mentally apologised to Hunk for slandering his near perfect food in that way, but she couldn’t think of any other way to make her excuse sound convincing. “I feel better now though.”

“Well, th-that’s good.” The tension in his shoulders hadn’t loosened up completely though, but his usual easy smile was on his lips. “By the way, you lost our last round, you know? If I recall correctly, it was double or nothing.”

“It doesn’t count since I never finished the round,” Pidge responded absentmindedly, not really in the mood for banter this morning. She felt jittery around him. Restless.

(And she sure as hell _finished_ the round in his daydream).

“Rematch tonight then? Winner takes all?”

“M-maybe some other time, Lance.”

Like not in the middle of the night and alone in a room together. A frown marred her brows, and she couldn’t find the proper levity she usually adopted when they traded barbs.

“Uh, right…” he responded at length, blue eyes looking a little confused.

She was starting to remember just what had her running from Lance in the first place with startling clarity. She was very aware of the sheer force of his general presence, that scent of his soap drifting over, the way her arm kept accidentally brushing his, his deceptive lankiness hiding a strong, lean-muscled physique. Pidge glanced up slowly to sneak a peek at Lance and inhaled sharply when she saw Lance was looking at her, expression unreadable. They both glanced away immediately, faces flushing. She didn’t know what had him turning away so abashed, but meeting his eyes only seemed to remind her of the way he’d been looking at her in his daydream.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know about sex. Pidge was not a prude and as a curious young teen with ample access to tech who’d just started menstruating, she’d done her research at a pretty early age. She’d made out with someone before too, a nerdy alien she’d met on another planet a deca-phoeb ago. It was a short-lived, quick, chill romance that ended because of her obligations as a paladin and the long distance. The most they’d done was kiss, but she’d been aware of the effect she had on him on occasion and where he’d probably been hoping their relationship would progress before she left.

(Now that she thought about it, that was around the time that odd tension grew in her friendship with Lance).

Lance definitely picked up on her weird behaviour and awkward mood if the odd look on his face was any indication, but he didn’t remark on it and thankfully, decided to remain quiet the rest of their short walk to the central room. It was tense and awkward though, and she could feel him glancing at her every once in a while. Pidge staunchly avoided his gaze, pretending like she didn’t notice his eyes on her. It was going to be a while before she could get over knowing that Lance had thought about hooking up with her in detail. And she wasn’t sure how easy it would be to maintain eye contact.

Shiro was laughing about something with Keith when they entered the main hall where their morning meetings took place. Their leader took one look at her and Lance when they walked in and gave them a strained smile.

_Goddamn. Their tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife. What the hell happened now?_

Coran also noticed them though he rubbed his chin pensively as he continued to look over his holographic screen with the castle vitals.

_I suppose Number 3 and 5 fornicated?_

It came out of nowhere, and Pidge erupted in a fit of coughs from choking on her own spit, her eyes wide in shock. What the fuck? Where the heck had he even gotten that idea from? Sure, they’d definitely done the deed in his daydream, but she didn’t think she’d been acting like it’d happened for real, right?

“Pidge?” Lance asked in alarm as he loosely wrapped an arm around her to keep her up and patted her back.

Hunk tilted his head in worry. “Are you alright?”

She waved them off with a nod as she sobered, knowing without reading their thoughts that they were likely to assume she was about to have the same allergic reaction from the party. Lance didn’t totally move away from her after she recovered and she was torn between loving his attention and wishing he’d go away so she could stop being reminded of her current plight.

“Just went down the wrong pipe, guys. I’m fine.”

When they were sure she wasn’t just saying that to get them off her case, Coran turned to Keith. “By the way, how was your mission, Keith? Did you get enough rest?”

“It went well, but I got back later than expected just because I had to get the microscope. Ended up going to bed after the suns rose.” And as if on cue, he yawned into his hand.

“It was nice of you to greet Keith at our shuttle bay, Pidge!” Allura said with a smile.

That got Lance’s attention. Pidge heard the suspicious thoughts in his head and began to feel dread over the coming conversation.

Lance rose a brow. “Wait, you got back late, right? Like midnight late?”

“It was later than that, I think.” Keith responded, brows scrunching as he thought about his timing. “You were up, Princess?”

“I couldn’t quite get to sleep properly so I took a little stroll around the castle with the mice.” Allura explained. “It usually helps tire me out enough to sleep. I saw you and Pidge moving the microscope to the lab on my way back to my chambers.”

Lance and Hunk dragged their gazes back to Pidge, and she felt her cheeks flush with heat. Hunk in particular had this bewildered, questioning look on his face and was wondering what happened for her to end up hanging out with Keith on a game night. But Lance was radiating displeasure and the look he was giving her felt like daggers stabbing her in the chest. This was almost a comically bad situation and if this was happening to anyone other than her, she might have laughed.

Except this was happening to her. She’d straight up _lied_ to Lance, and he was about to find out.

“What’d you do after moving the microscope? You know, since you went to bed past dawn.” Lance asked Keith the question, though Pidge knew it was directed at her.

Keith frowned at his terse tone, but still responded. “Pidge and I were working on the whole reverse engineering thing since we were both free. We got most of it done, but ended up staying up the whole night. The results should be ready by early afternoon.”

Pidge could not mistake the sharp wave of envy coming from Lance because it was immensely intense and clouded with something wounded and angry. He was projecting a thought of her and Keith in her lab staring into each other’s eyes with goofy grins and holding hands as they slowly leaned towards each other, intentions clear. It made her sick to her stomach.

(Not just the thought of being involved with Keith that way considering she wasn’t attracted to him, but also the fact that Lance wholeheartedly believed that kind of thing would even happen between her and Keith in the first place. Why the hell did he have such an overactive imagination?).

“Yes, but _all_ we did was finish up isolating the Galra nanotech,” Pidge clarified quickly and emphatically, more for Lance’s benefit than hers, but in spite of that, his mood was still sour and he was resolutely keeping his gaze away from her now, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Lance was _pissed_. Shit. This was definitely not what she’d wanted to happen in this morning meeting. And just when she’d fixed up those other issues. He probably thought she’d ditched him in favour of hanging out with Keith because that was exactly what this whole thing looked like. “And I wasn’t working in the lab with Keith all night. Because I was with Lance before that.”

“Oh, so that’s why you were barely wearing any clothes,” Keith intoned dryly, although his brows were lifted in what could only be described as a teasing manner. Coran’s face twisted into something affronted, and his jaw dropped.

 _What_ _the heck_ _kind of quiznaking illicit debauchery is happening on this ship after hours?!_

“Keith,” Pidge said through grit teeth in a warning tone and shook her head his way because now was _really_ not the time to be making joking comments full of innuendo. The whole atmosphere in the room was awkward and by now, Allura had even grown subdued from her earlier enthusiasm, looking at them uneasily because she’d picked up on the weird vibes Lance was giving off from the conversation.

Shiro looked like he was having an aneurysm. “With Lance…?”

_What the hell does she mean by **that**? Did she and Lance…? Is that why they’re so tense?_

She could immediately sense that they were all thinking in extremes. Even Hunk looked a little surprised, conjuring up thoughts of a private moment behind Lance’s closed door that would have had Pidge blushing, had she not been bombarded with a plethora of filthy sex thoughts by two of her teammates the past two quintants.

“Playing video games as usual,” she asserted in frustration. This whole conversation needed to die. Now. “There was nothing going on!”

“Yeah,” Lance added with a harsh, ugly grin that resembled nails on a chalkboard. His face was blank and closed off. “Why would there be?”

_Considering she doesn’t care._

And from the way his gaze remained distant and disinterested, she knew everything they’d just managed to fix in their relationship was fucked yet again. She really needed to find time to talk to him after this and explain because this was not good. He was pretty upset with her ditching their hang out to spend time with Keith all night in general, but the thing that stood out most in his thoughts was his anger over the fact that when he’d asked her where she’d gone she’d made up some elaborate story instead of telling him the truth. Lance thought she was clearly trying to hide something that happened with her and Keith, but unlike before, he didn’t care to find out anymore. He had resigned, but from what, she didn’t know.

And that scared her.

Pidge turned to him to try to come up with some excuse. “Lance—”

“Pidge, you and Lance can discuss whatever you need to privately in your own time. We have important matters to attend to involving _all_ of us.” Shiro interrupted gravely before she could get started. She wanted to protest that this was an important matter, but the rest of them had already turned to Shiro to give him their undivided attention and she knew pushing her situation now would be inappropriate. They all seemed pretty exhausted by the tension in the room. “We were contacted by one of King Qylt’s messengers regarding our meeting to discuss the alliance tonight. He has invited us all for dinner at the castle before the meeting, but he’s also decided that the only attendee of the meeting afterward should be Allura.”

Shocked and indignant reactions followed the announcement, all of them objecting to his sudden conditions.

“I cannot allow that!” Coran protested furiously with a growl. “I trust that king about as much as he trusts us! I will not subject the princess to a possible ambush!”

“I agree.” Shiro admitted. “Considering how little we know about where they stand with Galra relations, it would be unwise to negotiate on their terms. We’ll keep ourselves stationed nearby as backup for Allura in the event that any danger arises that is too much for one person to handle.”

Allura nodded in agreement. “That’s alright with me. We’ll have to stay alert and make sure to keep watch during dinner to make sure we’re not in danger of being attacked.”

“So Lance and Hunk, while Keith and Pidge do their reconnaissance mission, you guys and I will be lying in wait, just in case,” Shiro continued, looking at each of them in turn to direct their roles and tasks for the coming evening events. “Hunk, I want you to cover the door with the king’s guards, Lance, you’ll be hiding in the rafters for long distance coverage and scouting purposes. I’ll patrol the castle to look for any possible Galra militia. We’ll all need to keep our communication line open during this because things might get serious. We clear?”

Murmurs of affirmation filled the room and with a few more discussions about decorum and appearances for the dinner as well as logistics for their mission, they were dismissed from the meeting.

 

…

 

Pidge had wanted to reach out to Lance to explain why she’d lied—or at least attempt to make some sort of explanation that wouldn’t reveal her knowledge of his perverted thoughts—but after the meeting, Coran ambushed her and ushered her to the med bay for one more check-up to make sure she wasn’t suffering from some late onset allergen again, just in case. By the time that was over and done with, Lance had long disappeared and she couldn’t find him anywhere.

He wasn’t in his room, she didn’t find him chilling by the castle’s pool, and Blue was still in her hangar. He wasn’t training or in the castle’s gym or reading in the lounge or trying to sneak some of Hunk’s hidden stash of snacks that he collected as souvenirs from every planet. She’d even resorted to asking the mice if they’d seen him, but they were just as clueless of his whereabouts as she was.

Frustrated, Pidge leaned against the wall of the bridge leading to Blue’s hangar and banged her forehead against it a few times. Now there was _another_ mess to fix, and she wouldn’t have the opportunity if she couldn’t find Lance. But she knew it was futile to a certain extent. Honestly, if Lance really didn’t want to be found, he would make sure he wasn’t. She’d try again later when he’d had a chance to cool down some. Angry Lance could be extremely petulant, but he wasn’t unreasonable and he was generally more than fair and gave people chances to explain. Maybe if she gave him time to stew over his anger, he’d search for answers and come to her for an explanation.

Besides, she had a job to finish.

Pidge trudged to the lab to go back and check on all the results of their biochemical testing on the sample solution. She sincerely hoped there would be some positive results because it had taken a shit ton of time to get the stuff done, especially with their lack of expertise and not to mention the effort it had taken in general.

Hunk was in the lab looking at the results of the mass spectrometer pulled up on a holographic screen, but he turned and waved at her over his shoulder when she walked in.

“Hey, perfect timing! The test just finished.”

“Anything of note?” Pidge asked as she came up to stand beside him. The molecules in the solution were all foreign and unknown to her and belatedly, she realised that it made perfect sense that there wouldn’t be Terran functional groups like amines and carbonyls and what not.

“I mean, you tell me. You’re the one studying Altean.” Hunk chuckled as he pointed out the strange elements. “But the castle has old chemistry books in its archives, so I put the information through a scan so we could get explanations of the way these things work.”

“These are Qiolean and Galra elements though.”

“Right, but Altean chemists were groundbreaking scientists who studied many different elements to utilise them in their tech. Plus, Daibazaal used to work with Altea, so Galra science is part of the archives.”

“Oh wow~ Good thinking, Hunk,” Pidge said, impressed, as she gave him a grateful smile. “This is way too much chemistry. I’m starting to get sick of it.”

He nodded emphatically, leaning back against the table behind them as he looked at all the weird symbols. “Tell me about it. I’m getting a headache from all this stuff. There’s a reason I stuck to mechanical and removed chemical engineering from my curriculum.”

They fell in companionable science, Pidge idly sifting through some of the files she’d stolen to see if she had missed anything that might explain why her mysterious substance wasn’t matching up to Plox. But Hunk was restlessly shifting and kept glancing down at her curiously. For a brief second, Pidge caught the unrelenting inquisitive vibe persisting in his mind and knew he had something he wanted to ask her. She raised a brow at him at his nosiness.

“Hunk, just ask me what you want to ask me.”

“What happened with you and Lance last night?” he near blurted out, sounding like he’d been sitting on that question for a while. “I wanted to ask Lance, but he looked pretty pissed off, so I figured it wasn’t the best time.”

“And you thought asking me would be better?” Pidge hopped up on a lab table and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Still, to be fair, she would have probably heard or caught the question in his thoughts somehow. Besides, maybe it was better that she clarified some things up because Hunk was still convinced that they’d had some sort of passionate evening in his room.

(He wasn’t half wrong…)

“It was worth a try…” he muttered, looking a little chastised. “You guys have been on edge so forgive me for wanting to know why my two besties can barely stand to look at each other right now.”

Pidge sighed, her shoulders slumping in guilt at getting snappy with Hunk. She really needed to cool it. Her problems with Lance were really no reason to take it out on other people.

“Nothing happened, Hunk. Well, I mean… there was… ummm… would you consider Lance a pervert?”

It seemed like a safe way to approach the issue without revealing too much.

Hunk pondered the question with a slight frown on his face. “Probably no more perverted than most guys our age.”

“But like, does he regularly have his mind in the gutter?”

“He _is_ almost a man. Physical encounters are going to be on his mind sometimes since you know, it’s not like he’s getting much action these days.”

“I mean I get that. What other purpose would he be flirting with all those alien girls for, right?” Pidge swallowed, scratching at a scab on her arm. “He can’t seriously date them long term, so his intentions were to hook up with them, right? So he’s pretty much got sex on the brain a lot, right?”

Hunk didn’t answer at first, watching her with a degree of suspicion that made her nervous. She knew she’d been rambling and her sentences didn’t make sense and she’d repeated right too many times. He looked like he was putting pieces of something together in his mind.

 _Did Lance make a pass at Pidge?_ _What the heck happened last night?_

“What brought these inquisitions on?” he asked slowly, narrowing his eyes at her with some gleam in his eyes that told Pidge no matter what she said, Hunk would use it as fodder to spur whatever thoughts he was having in his head.

She picked at a loose string on her pants, trying to think of the best way to bring up what she’d seen without the mind reading. “Nothing. I just… I think Lance had some kind of sex dream about me? And I kinda found out?”

Dream, daydream, same difference.

“Oh.” Hunk looked surprised enough, but he clearly wasn’t. Because the next thing she heard was:

_Which one did she find out about? Hopefully not the dominatrix one._

She was barely able to keep her facial expression relatively neutral, and it took biting her tongue to keep from making any exclamations of surprise. Because Hunk’s thoughts implied Lance had had more than _one_ dream about her. And as actual nighttime dreams. Was this a normal thing? How much did Hunk know?

“Why are you so chill about this?” Pidge demanded, hitting him with the question to see if she could try to get him to reveal the answer in his thoughts since he seemed like he wasn’t going to explain much about this. “That’s a pretty big thing, you know? Having sex dreams about your friends.”

“Well, yeah, but also kinda no…?” Hunk tapered off with a weird look on his face. “Pidge, you have an older brother, right?”

Where was the relevance with asking that question? “Yeah, so?”

“He probably forbade you from coming in his room in the mornings or something, right?”

“I guess, but what does that have to do with—”

She got her answer in the form of an unfortunate impromptu mental anatomy lesson regarding a certain male appendage and morning wood.

“Argh! _Gross_ , Hunk!”

He shrugged sheepishly. “It’s a guy thing. Can’t control our dreams.”

So then he was basically saying what Lance had daydreamed about didn’t mean anything. Just an inconsequential thought out of his jurisdiction.

“No need to explain further. I get it. Lance is probably a raging pervert.” Pidge drawled with a roll of her eyes, and Hunk chuckled at her joke. “Just do me a favour. You can’t tell him I know about the dreams.”

“Why not? It’ll make your conversations smoother to get everything out in the open, right?” Hunk gave her a weird look. “Were you guys weird this morning because you were fighting about that?”

“It won’t make conversations better.” It’d make them wholly worse because she hadn’t so much found out about it as stole the information. “And we’re not fighting about that.”

“But if that’s part of the reason you have problems—”

“It isn’t, Hunk. I don’t want to talk to him about this because he’ll want to discuss it or make excuses or explain, and I haven’t really had time to ponder it enough to consider what it means to be ready to have a frank discussion about it.” That’s why she’d run in the first place, and it still freaked her out that it’d been so vivid, so she wasn’t open to talking about it with Lance yet. Especially now that she knew it was recurring. It wasn’t like she was scared of sex or anything, but Lance _and_ sex? That brought on a slew of weird emotions and reactions in her that she couldn’t deal with properly. “And what am I supposed to say to him anyway? Because somehow I’m pretty sure ‘hey Lance, I couldn’t help but notice you want to bump uglies with me in your head. How groovy!’ isn’t going to cut it.”

Hunk chuckled, looking bemused as he shook his head. “No, pretty sure that won’t work either. Maybe something a little more nuanced. Or you know, less crass?”

“Which is why there is _no_ way to bring it up. I’m not saying anything.” She fixed Hunk with a dark glare. “And you won’t either, or I’m going to throw out your secret snack stash.”

He gasped dramatically, putting a hand to his heart. “You _wouldn’t_!”

“Oh yes I fucking would, Hunk.” She kicked at him playfully. “Never underestimate the levels of petty I can reach.”

“Fine. I won’t say anything,” he agreed begrudgingly though he looked disappointed.

_Although if you confront him about it, maybe he’ll finally tell you he thinks you’re cute._

Pidge wasn’t altogether surprised he thought she was cute to some extent. She’d gotten that vibe from yesterday night’s unfortunate hang out mishap—and not to toot her own horn, she’d recently begun to take after her mom a lot in terms of looks—but thinking someone was cute or good looking or attractive was not the same thing as being attracted to them. There were only two females on the ship, so maybe he couldn’t help but conflate his desires with Pidge at times because the pickings were slim.

Pidge frowned, realising she was looking at this dream thing all wrong. The dreams were probably not exclusive to her and likely she was the stray thought bred from his curiosity. The majority of his dreams were probably about the woman he actually loved.

“Wait, has Lance had dreams about Allura?” she asked, exercising complete focus on him to make sure she heard his thoughts no matter what answer he gave her.

Hunk’s shoulders tensing a bit could have been missed if she hadn’t been paying attention to him.

_Yeah, but not like before…_

“Umm, I don’t think that’s something I should tell you,” he said tentatively, licking his lips and glancing away from her uncomfortably before barely meeting her gaze.

She got her answer.

The bottom line was that Allura plagued his thoughts and dreams. And probably a lot.

Pidge hadn’t realised she’d been waiting with baited breath until she released it in disappointment. She really had to stop letting her heart get all worked up into believing she was special in Lance’s eyes. He cared about her in a way no different than close friends cared for each other. She suspected that the only time she’d caught his attention in a sexual way was probably when she hung out with him in her pyjamas. Their nighttime escapades had probably spurred on his dreams.

“Never mind, Hunk. I don’t want to know anymore.” Pidge lied to let him off the hook, and though he tried to hide his sigh of relief, she still saw it plain as day. Hunk was trying to spare her feelings, but it was moot when no one’s heads were safe from her anymore. “It’s not important. Besides, the scan is finished.”

They quieted as they read through the explanations of the elements that made up the weapon they were inspecting. Most of the molecules were relatively on par with or similar to what would be found on Earth and because they’d made control solutions, they lined up the results with the control results and erased the control from their experimental samples, leaving only a wide array of weird particles that made up the composition of what they were testing.

“This is kinda cool!” Hunk exclaimed in fascination, pointing to the little explanatory box the castle had put beside each particular mass of each peak, crest, or point of the spectrometry results. “This is the Galran nano chemical. It’s almost like a sentient being on its own, despite not being alive or anything. One by itself doesn’t have many effects, but a cluster of them together can exercise certain behaviours depending on what they’re combined with.”

There was definitely some sort of magic imbued in it. Magic that could coil with the natural physiology of whatever it ended up latching on to and assimilating itself with the host structure by forming some kind of symbiotic relationship with unknown consequences. There was no telling what it could do to human cells or Qiolean cells or Altean cells or _any_ other cells, really. It could have very different effects on anyone which could only be seen if a molecule reacted with the host. For Pidge, she’d ended up with mind reading capabilities, and though her immune system had likely fought it as a foreign substance (hence, the allergic reaction), the fact that she was still feeling the effects of her “infection” meant that it had managed to bypass her immune system and had established itself firmly in her body. That was probably why it couldn’t be detected when she’d been in the healing pod for any sign of hazardous allergens. Her body wasn’t recognising it as hazardous anymore.

So now Pidge had confirmation that she had definitely inhaled it inside her, and it was kind of terrifying. She didn’t know what to do because she very well could have a parasite in her body.  Or worse, some sort of dead man’s switch. Right now, she wasn’t suffering from any adverse reactions, but that didn’t mean it was guaranteed to stay like that forever. She had something like a nano creature probably living in her brain.

The next time she had more free time, she would need to get a full blood work checkup from Coran and get him to possibly check her cerebrospinal fluid for any sign of the foreign substance. But she’d need to figure out a way to do that without making him suspicious or getting him worried. If he thought something was wrong with her, he’d tell the rest of the team.

“It seems like overall, this thing was designed to have some strong neurological effects,” Pidge said, skimming the rest of the information on the molecules in the substance and what they generally did or were used for. “Although I’m not sure what could be used as an effective antidote.”

She wasn’t surprised human antibodies couldn’t defend the body from it. It was from a completely other part of the universe and human bodies themselves were extremely far behind the rest of the universe as far as evolution went.

“Maybe the antidote is in the Qiolea castle’s experiment lab?” he suggested.

“Probably,” she lied, only to make it seem like she was confident, because she knew nothing of what she’d broken whatsoever. “Keith and I will make sure to take everything related that we see.”

“I can’t believe we’re about to save the universe from a possible biochemical weapon!” Hunk said in excitement, and Pidge forced a bright smile on her face, pretending to share his same enthusiasm. “This calls for some celebration. Mind if I go make us some snacks?”

She waved him off. “I’ll keep checking the files I stole to see if there might be any mentions of what to use to counteract this thing.”

As soon as Hunk left the lab, Pidge pulled the Qiolean files up and searched through all of them, frantically inputting the sentient Galra molecule to see if it would pop up in the files. There was nothing. Either the Qioleans had no information on this weird substance, _or_ in taking the general weapon’s files from the castle, she’d missed other crucial information that could help her make sense of this weird mess. She knew she and Keith had to steal the experiments, but she desperately needed to get back to the command central and find out what this weird Galra weapon was that she’d ingested.

The trick would be convincing Keith that somehow they had to go back to the central command to steal more files. She supposed she could make some excuse that she might have missed files with information on how to create an antidote, but he wouldn’t agree with her reasoning if it would put them in unnecessary danger. Plus, he might argue that they could generate their own antidote in the Castle of Lions which they definitely could, thus defeating the purpose of going back to central command. The goal was a quick in out mission, and she just knew that Keith would object to straying off the course.

Pidge ran a hand through her hair with a heavy, apprehensive sigh as she dragged her feet out of the lab to talk a small walk. Maybe she would lie down on the lounge couches and try to rest her ailing mind. She needed some air for a few seconds because being in there had been starting to suffocate her. Her mind was spinning wildly from everything she was concerned over and trying to understand and she couldn’t come up with any quick solutions.

As she started to round a corner in the direction of the lounge, she heard voices speaking in low, hushed tones. Something told her it was a private conversation, and she stopped in her tracks, carefully peeking her head out and growing surprised when she realised it was Lance talking to Shiro.

“I can’t just turn my anger off and on like a light switch.” Lance was leaning back against one of the walls of the corridor, arms crossed in front of his chest and looking thoroughly reprimanded.

“But you _can_ control it,” Shiro said firmly, but not unkindly. Lance made a face of displeasure, and Shiro’s expression and tone softened. “You’re going to have to, Lance. I don’t want consternation between any of my members. And especially not between you and her. You have too much history to be fighting like—”

“She lied to me point blank about something I’d say was pretty important. My feelings of frustration are valid!”

Pidge’s brows furrowed. So they were talking about her.

“But it’s not just that, isn’t it?” Shiro said in a heavy tone full of hidden meaning.

Lance narrowed his eyes and looked away from Shiro but otherwise didn’t acknowledge the comment with any sort of response. Pidge growled under her breath in annoyance. She was just out of their range to hear either of their thoughts clearly, and all she was picking up from Lance were some jumbled emotions here and there—vexation, a tortured misery, feelings of having no worth, envy, displeasure, resentment… maybe _love_? It was weird.

“Lance, I know you’re hurt, but you can’t just stop talking to Pidge. Voltron’s formation is contingent upon absolute vulnerability and openness with each other. We all need to be of one sound mind.”

He pouted. “I get it, okay? I’ve gotten this talk from _everyone_ , believe me, but at which point do I have to keep putting up with her bullshit? I care about Pidge, but there are times when I really feel like she doesn’t care about me.”

“You know damn well that’s not true,” Shiro replied sternly, fixing Lance with a look of disappointment. “Whenever she’s feeling down, she goes to you first because I believe you’re the most important person to her in our crew. She cares about you a lot. To say otherwise is insulting to the friendship you’ve cultivated.”

“I… I know she does. But not how…” Lance chewed on his lower lip with a scowl and huffed in dejection. “There’s nothing I can do about that anyway.”

“Heartbreak isn’t easy. Believe me, I know.” Shiro put a hand on Lance’s shoulder consolingly. Lance glanced back up at Shiro hesitantly, and the pained look on his face made Pidge’s heart fall. “But I meant what I said that I don’t want your relationship issues with Pidge to take precedence over our team dynamic. Voltron is an important part of our efforts to unite the planets. If we can’t form Voltron because of tensions between you two, it could derail our efforts.”

Lance sighed, but conceded. “I’ll try, Shiro. But I need time.”

“I understand that you do. Do your best, Lance.”

Pidge frowned, stepping back and leaning back against the wall to stare at the ceiling. She couldn’t listen to this anymore when her heart felt heavy in her chest and the back of her eyes prickling with emotion. She felt guilty that lying to him had actually hurt him worse than she had thought. Pidge knew she was partly responsible for Lance’s current feelings of no worth, not just with what she’d said to him when they’d fought the night before, but also now, with lying to him and acting like she didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth. They were supposed to be best friends, but Pidge had accidentally been making him feel like he was expendable in her life.

She wasn’t in close enough range to catch their thoughts clearly, but she also knew with absolute clarity that when he’d said he needed time, he’d meant time away from _her_.

And that hurt her more than she wanted to admit.

In all this time of being paladins, no matter how many fights they’d gotten in or issues they’d had with each other, they’d worked it out with each other or together somehow. But apparently this time, Lance was so rankled with her that he couldn’t even stand to be around her. She’d avoided him briefly for some time too, but the way he’d said it to Shiro, with such an air of finality as if he absolutely refused to even be near her, had made her stomach fall to her feet.

But part of her was also a little angry. Call it her stubbornness, but the way he was talking to Shiro made her a bit mad that he was acting as if she was the sole cause of all their issues. While she could admit fault for the whole lying to him thing and aggravating a smaller argument by avoiding him for a short time, she’d attempted to make amends and it wasn’t like the tension in their friendship was bred from only her actions. They had to claim dual responsibility for why they’d ended up where they currently were.

Pidge stepped away from the wall and left to find somewhere else to relax. She and Lance seriously needed to hash all of this out before it blew up into something bigger than it needed to be, but maybe he was right that time away from each other would do them a little good.

 

…

 

“This place is enormous…” Keith muttered, looking around the lab and marvelling in part horror at the sheer amount of weaponry and chemicals being manufactured. “Do they really need this much?”

“If they’re making weapons for a possible insurgent army they do…” Pidge dropped down beside him, scanning the room again briefly to re-familiarise herself with the layout.

She dusted off her small gown to try to get rid of any dust. It would have been more ideal for them to change back into their paladin armour for this mission, but they had snuck down here after dinner and were to return at the end of the meeting to say their farewells to the king and had to remain presentable. Plus, there was no place to store their armour and the meeting could be short and wouldn’t give them enough time to change.

“Hn.”

The noncommittal response was followed up by Keith saying something about the odd power sources, but Pidge was barely paying attention and could only think about how awkward dinner had been. The walk to Qiolea castle had been just as bad with Lance and Pidge walking the furthest possible distance from each other and everyone else trying to pretend like they didn’t notice the rift but looking uneasy and so everyone had stayed dead silent. Thankfully the King chose seating in his banquet hall and had separated all the paladins from sitting with each other. She hadn’t had to talk to Lance during dinner, although he had been the closest to her, and had instead occupied her time with discussing tech with the dignitary beside her. There were times she would involuntarily glance over at him, but she got the distinct impression he was doing everything in his power not to look at her.

The only time they’d even made any sort of interaction, brief as it may have been, was after Coran had made eye contact with one of the king’s advisors and promptly thought about a hookup they’d apparently had two quintants ago (when he supposedly had gone to bed early!) that ended in a fight because the guy bleated like a sheep when he came, and Coran couldn’t stop laughing at him.

It’d been so unexpected that Pidge cracked up in raucous laughter, spewing water over her plate even though she tried to shut herself up. Her disruptive outburst during a fairly quiet dinner had brought embarrassed apologies by Allura and Coran, a stern look from Shiro, and other strange looks from the other attendants. By the time she’d fully sobered up, she caught Lance’s inquisitive stare. He wanted to know what was funny, especially since he was sitting between two city officials who were arguing about the merits of no community outreach and he looked like he wanted to punch someone. And she wanted to tell him. She wanted to laugh with him about this and crack jokes and goof off as usual, but when she’d started to smile, he’d looked away quickly, intrigue replaced by his irritation with her.

It had shut down all of Pidge’s humour in less than a tick, and she’d spent the rest of dinner pushing food around on her plate dejectedly, appetite gone and stomach coiling in discomfort.

She missed him a lot more than she would have expected for really less than a day of going without talking.

“ _Pidge_!” Keith’s face suddenly appeared in front of her looking frustrated, and she nearly jumped a foot in the air. “Get out of your head and pay attention! I’ve been asking you where you found the weapon.”

“Oh!” She quickly schooled her expression into something more professional and gestured to the glass corridor partially hidden. “Down there, but that one is broken and it was in a room by itself. Maybe there are others like it in this place?”

“Okay. So let’s start looking.”

They began to walk through the lab, checking behind cabinets, looking past the racks of chemicals on the walls, looking under the conveyor belts and vats, and much more for possible secrete passages underground, covering very little ground in a large amount of time because the place was so extraordinarily large. She kept finding her mind drifting to Lance though and growled in annoyance. She didn’t want to deal with this right now.

“Pidge, you need to focus,” Keith ordered beside her as he pushed a storage cabinet back into its place after having realised it had no hidden doors behind it. He eyed her warily. “We could get a lot more done faster if you weren’t thinking about Lance.”

“I’m not thinking about…”

She tapered off and sighed, shoulders slumping and knowing it wasn’t worth it to deny it. At the end of the day, he was right.

“We all have issues we need to work out once in a while, but Pidge when it’s time to work, you need to push it aside. We don’t have all that much time in here, you know?”

“Easy for you to say… Your best friend didn’t just decide it’s not worth talking to you anymore.”

Keith’s harsh gaze softened, and he patted Pidge’s back with a sigh. “It’ll work itself out when it’s time. You can’t force reconciliation.”

“It’s throwing me off my game.”

“I noticed.” He stared at the ceiling, a little uncomfortable with the frank discussion they were having about this. “But it’s not just you. Your issues are really messing with the vibe of the team. We can all feel it. It’s kind of awkward because we can’t tell you both what to do, but there’s way too much tension.”

“Urgh, I know…” she bemoaned, wishing there was a way to just wipe out all the problems and start the day over. What had possessed her to lie to Lance so outlandishly? She should have just told him she was working with Keith in the lab to get some of her work done and apologised for not coming back.

“I get that you’re going through something difficult, Pidge, but right now, we’re on an important mission. And we need to focus. Get it out of your mind and keep your head in the game.”

“You’re right.”

They got back to work once again and this time Pidge made more of an effort to focus as they ran around the lab, feeling walls and checking different rooms to see if they might be able to find a similar glass corridor like the one she’d found. About a few doboshes into their search though, a tickle poked the back of her mind.

_This is so fucking tedious…_

Keith’s mind wandered to Shiro frying some breakfast in front of the stove of Keith’s father’s wooden cabin shack back on earth. Shiro was wearing an apron (and _only_ an apron) and humming to himself serenely. A sleepy Keith walked out of the bedroom with a yawn as his eyes zoned in on his husband. He smiled at the peace he and Shiro were finally able to achieve, the life together they could now have now that they were finally done with war.

It seemed innocent enough, but then Keith walked over to the man he loved and squeezed Shiro’s ass before reaching around, slipping his hands under the apron, and taking hold of his cock. Keith pressed himself against Shiro, letting his own burgeoning erection bump against Shiro’s ass as he languidly stroked his husband to arousal.

“Breakfast is going to burn, Keith…” Shiro was trembling a bit, but his panting made it pretty clear that he had no objections to the sudden turn of events.

He kissed the back of Shiro’s neck. “Let it.”

And that was as far as Pidge let it travel in her mind.

“How can you get on me not being able to focus when you’re definitely not focusing either?!” Pidge blew up without thinking about what she was saying. “ _Get it out of your mind and keep your head in the game_ , _Keith_.”

Keith looked startled, taken aback by her comment, and that was when she remembered it had been perfectly concealed in his thoughts. Still though. Him getting on her about apparently not focusing while he was daydreaming was so not cool.

“What? I’m totally focused.” Somewhere in that blasé look of his was an inkling of a look as if he’d gotten caught.

“My _ass_. You look like you’re lost in thought.” A neutral statement. “Look if you have feelings for someone, you need to _tell_ them. Daydreaming about them and having fantasies is okay and all, but if you don’t actually speak the feelings into existence, how will they ever reciprocate? I know it’s hard putting yourself out there, but what do you stand to lose?”

For a second, she thought maybe she’d gone a little too far because as far as they all were concerned, Keith wasn’t obvious about the fact he liked someone and her statements might have hit the mark a little too closely.

“…Was it that obvious?” he finally replied quietly at length, looking bashful and slightly embarrassed. Keith blushing was adorable. “That I uh… that I like someone?”

“Honestly, no. I only picked up on it because I’m good at figuring out people’s thoughts.” Eh. Wasn’t totally a lie. She _could_ read their minds. Tomato, to-mah-ta. “But if no one else has been able to figure out you have feelings for someone, your crush also won’t be able to figure it out if you’re so distant with it.”

“Yeah, but I’m not trying to actively pursue Sh— my crush. We have too much on our plates.”

_Besides, it could ruin everything we have going with each other._

It was the first time she’d ever heard Keith sound worried or vulnerable about something; in her eyes, he usually always seemed so self-assured. The feelings pulsing through his mind were so filled with an all-consuming love that even her own heart started to pound relentlessly hard in her chest. And with a certain degree of shock, she recognised that same feeling from _Lance_ when he’d been talking to Shiro earlier.

“Trust me,” Pidge continued, clearing the thought from her head. It couldn’t have been that. “This person cares about you as much as you care about them. Your relationship is too deep to shatter over something like that.”

“Distractions during war are unwise. It clouds judgement and are a sure fire way to end in disaster,” he pointed out as he peeked around the corner into yet another laboratory room. “I don’t think any of us need that right now.”

Look who was talking Mr. I Have Pervy Thoughts About My Crush While I’m On A Mission.

“True, but with all the crazy shit going on in our lives, it might be nice to have someone by your side who grounds you. What do you have to lose, Keith?”

_The man I love…_

“…I’ll think about it,” Keith finally said, and they continued on their way into the room to check for a similar glass corridor. “You should follow your own advice, you know?”

She frowned. “Huh?”

“About Lance.” Keith’s expression was almost _too_ innocent to not appear conniving.

Pidge eyed him in distaste. “ _No_. See, it doesn’t work when you know the person is in love with someone else.”

Keith gave her a look like she had lost her mind. “Who? _Allura_?”

“Yes, clearly. So drop it. I’m not in the habit of bringing pain to myself.”

He hummed, unconvinced, and she thought he was going to drop it, but then Keith scoffed under his breath and said, “Lance must have had the patience of a saint.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She sneered at him, standing right in his way and partially wondering if he was trying to pick a fight with her.

He knocked a knuckle to her head a couple times, a serious look on his face. “It means you’re oblivious.”

“ _What_?” She narrowed her eyes at him, ready to fight him for the rather insulting comment. She was small, but she could be deadly. This was the second time that word had been used to describe her and it was really starting to grate her nerves.

“Unaware.” Keith was unbothered by her sudden ire. “Obtuse. I don’t mean this as something insulting, but you don’t see things that are right in front of your face and probably hurt other people in the process.”

 _And Lance has probably had enough_.

She had been completely ready to throw down and try to make Keith eat dirt, but the ominous statement in his head cooled her wrath and instead filled her with confusion and anxiety. What did he mean by Lance had had enough? His conversation with Shiro came to the forefront of her mind again. Enough of her? Pidge swallowed hard, her chest feeling tight and painful.

She was starting to doubt all her convictions about this situation with Lance. Was she completely in the wrong? What the hell was she missing that was so huge that merited her being called oblivious a bunch of times?

“Did I cause my rift with Lance?” she asked seriously, trying to recount every interaction with Lance and what had set him off in the first place.

Keith didn’t answer when he saw the warring emotions on her face and instead patted the top of her head gently, ruffling her hair slightly to take her attention away from her thoughts. “When we get back to the castle, how about a spar? I’ll even let you get a couple freebie shots in.”

Pidge pushed his hand off her head, raising a brow as she glanced up at him with a smirk. “A couple freebie shots? Sure you want to take that risk, Keith? You’ll get laid out in one.”

“Somehow? I think I can take that chance,” he responded dryly, unconcerned.

“Don’t come crying to me when I kick your ass.”

He tilted his head sideways, eyes crinkling warmly as he smiled. “There’s the Pidge I know. What do you say we get back to work?”

She nodded and they resumed their search. It took them to a room way deep inside the lab, hidden by another panel door. This one didn’t seem to have a lock code on it, so they opened the door and headed in. It took them inside what looked like a dark, musty storage room with ample shelves around the room and to nearly the ceiling. Each shelf was labelled with tags for each chemical of a different kind. It was nearly endless, taking up the entire room from floor to ceiling. Pidge ran a finger along the tags as she read them in her mind. She’d just figured out they were relatively alphabetically organised when Keith called her attention.

“I found it,” Keith suddenly said, staring at a row of chemicals stored in large capped flasks.

He had found it. Along with multiple, multiple other Ploxes, some probably failed experiments, some probably yet to be tested. Plox 10-B8. Incomplete. Plox V-34. Failure. Plox 69F. Limited range. All flasks with a liquid in the interior, green-ish in colour and slightly viscous. Her fears were realised at that moment. She had not found Plox 10-B8 in her initial recon.

Pidge hadn’t come up with anything like this in the stolen files. Neither the storage room nor all these Plox experiments had ever popped up in the database when she’d done her search. She’d really screwed up.

Fuck.

“Pidge, didn’t you say the thing you found was stored deep underground in a freezing room and isolated because it was extremely combustible?” Keith asked, reaching out to lightly touch one of the Plox bottles in its slot. Based on his confused frown, Pidge knew there was no heat at all. “And didn’t it also turn pink from the Galra nano-tech?”

“Yeah.” She croaked out, more nervous than ever before now that it was confirmed she’d made a mistake. She’d rushed her search thinking she’d gotten all the information she needed, but she’d probably been wrong. She absolutely _had to_ go to central command somehow and scourge the files to find out what the hell was in her body.

“So then if _this_ is Plox,” Keith’s expression darkened with apprehension as he spun around to stare at her incredulously, “what the hell is in _our_ lab?”

She didn’t have a chance to think about an explanation because an explosion rocked the castle so harshly that the ground rumbled and bits of the ceiling fell to the floor. Keith and Pidge glanced at each other in alarm, their present mission largely forgotten.

That explosion had come from above ground right where the congressional meeting was taking place.

“Keith! Pidge!” Shiro suddenly barked through the comm unit in their ears. “We need backup!”


	5. Chapter 5

The scramble to return to the congressional hall was more difficult due to the fact that Pidge’s legs were a bit constrained by the fluff of the dress. Keith went ahead of her and did his best to help pull her through the corners of the vent and out of the grate when they got back to the main hallway. There was a loud ripping sound as she tried to pull herself to her feet and stepped on her own hem. She’d torn a large gash along one of the seams by her legs trying to get out, officially ruining the dress.

Collateral damage, she supposed. Coran would definitely be crying over this though.

Pidge pulled her bayard from its place in the garter under her dress and they took off, running back the way they’d come. Pidge couldn’t help the anxious rolling of her stomach. There weren’t any castle guards protecting this particular area which meant they all were probably occupied with the battle currently at hand. This could be bad.

They ended up finding Shiro a few corridors down from where they’d left the grate. He was fighting off a bunch of sentries with his arm and attempting to keep them from getting past him.

“ _Shiro_!” Keith shouted as they rounded the corner, Marmora sword enlarged and at the ready.

She and Keith rushed to join the fray, but Shiro shook his head at them, grunting as he continued to avoid Galra sentries and slashed a few down. One of them aimed at his face and nearly nicked his head, but Pidge launched her bayard at it and sliced its head clean off before it managed to get to their leader.

“What happened, Shiro?” she asked, crouching down quickly as Keith swung wide with his sword and knocked out the one close to her. “Do you need some help?”

“I’ll be fine. But you need to get to the meeting hall!” Shiro yelled instead, pointing further down where they could clearly hear more sounds of fired shots and clanging weaponry. “I’ll explain later, but Allura is protecting the king and needs backup now. Hunk and Lance are trying to fend off too many sentries at once!”

Pidge frowned in confusion. “Protecting King Qylt? Huh?”

“Nevermind that! Go help them!”

“We’ll go,” Keith agreed, though he looked concerned as he watched Shiro fight. He didn’t want to leave him. “Stay safe, Shiro. C’mon, Pidge.”

They extricated themselves from Shiro’s fight easily enough and continued on their way back to the meeting room and closer to the louder sounds of the battle. They could hear the sounds of Hunk’s battle cries accompanied with the blasting noises of the bayard guns as they approached. She and Keith passed the corridor that would lead them to central command and Pidge slowed to a stop, brows furrowed as she turned in that direction.

The timing was bad and she knew her fellow paladins would need help, but when else would she get the chance to come back here? She _needed_ information. This could be her only shot.

“Keith, you go on ahead. I’ll be back in a second,” Pidge said, and Keith stopped too and scowled at her over his shoulder.

“What? _Why_?”

“I just need to grab an important file,” she replied impatiently. “I promise I’ll come back right after that!”

Keith looked like he wasn’t comprehending what she was telling him. “Shiro told us to—”

“I know what he said!” Pidge interrupted in annoyance, turning to him fully. “I _need_ to get this file, Keith! It’s about the Plox mistake and if I don’t get it, I might never get it. So just go; I’ll catch up!”

His expression was looking more concerned than irate now. “Are you sure? Do you want some backup just in case?”

“They need your help more. Just go to the others, and I’ll meet up with you guys later.” She hitched up the bottom of her dress, bunching it up right under her hips and tying the hem in a knot so it wouldn’t get in the way of her legs should she need to make a quick getaway. It was bad enough that she wasn’t wearing her protective armour, but she couldn’t move as well in this stupid outfit. It was just their luck that they happened to get attacked on the one night they were least prepared. It wouldn’t be a great situation if she ended up having to fight sentries in this dress. “If I get caught in a pinch, I’ll just hide or evade or something.”

“…If you don’t join us in the next five doboshes, I’m sending backup,” Keith responded resolutely.

Pidge smiled a bit, meeting his gaze as she nodded. “Okay.”

“Be careful.”

They parted ways, Keith heading back towards the conference hall while Pidge raced through the corridor to the central command. Thankfully, there was no one there, neither sentries nor guards. But the doors to the central command were blown wide open, a whole chunk of the wall also taken with it.

“Well… I found the source of the explosion,” she muttered humourlessly, bypassing the debris cluttered near the entrance and heading inside.

The room was darkened and it looked like the power was way down, but it was unguarded and empty. Pidge hurried over to the only super computer that was still up and running and pulled out her hacking cord from her watch. She plugged it up and pulled up a holographic screen for command input. She didn’t have time to carefully scavenge for files, but luckily, she knew exactly what kind of files she was looking for. She typed in everything having to do with the Galra chemical and nanotech and to her sheer relief, watched as a few files popped up in relation to her keywords. She set to work downloading them immediately, choosing to read them later when she had time, and not caring if she was triggering alert switches left and right. The castle was _already_ under attack. She doubted any of the guards would care at this point and come to try to stop her.

A loud charging noise of crackling electricity sounded behind her, and Pidge barely had a chance to register that it sounded like an _energy gun_ before a ball of blue energy tore right past her head, just barely missing her.

Pidge screamed in surprise and hunched into herself when it crashed into the power source at the centre of the computers and caused it to burst into flames. It had been so close to her head that she’d felt the heat nick her ear the slightest bit. She paid little attention to her throbbing ear or rapidly beating heart though. The remaining power had gone out immediately from the blast and the last computer shut down mid transfer, rendering any information she’d been close to getting absolutely gone. The download had been incomplete and on her screen was a big DOWNLOAD FAILED message in red block letters.

“ _No_!” Pidge shouted in frustration.

But she didn’t get a chance to properly lament the loss because she heard that charging noise behind her again, much closer this time. Pidge gasped when she saw the sentry line up his shot through the reflection of the darkened screen and ducked out of the way just fast enough for the blast to explode on the computer, right through where her head had previously been. She tried to scramble to her feet to run, but the gown unravelled and tangled in her legs and tripped her up, and she fell against the smoking motherboards, letting go of her bayard as it skidded over the tile away from her. Pidge kicked at the fabric and tried to run to go pick it up, but she was yanked back by her arm and realised she was still connected to the computer. Her heart started thudding in her chest as she tried to rip her hacking cord out of the socket, but her hands were shaking violently and the blast had warped the connecting port and gotten her tech stuck.

“ _C’mon_!” Pidge cried, eyes stinging from the smoke as she tried to yank the plug of the cord out, glancing frantically over her shoulder to watch the sentry’s movements. “Would you please get out?!”

The faceless sentry pulled out a bayonet and extended it slowly before charging at her. He jumped into the air, both hands on the hilt to bring it down on her. Pidge froze, sirens ringing in her ears, her heart in her throat, and could do nothing but stare wide eyed as he descended rapidly towards her, the metal from the sword glinting ominously in the dark light of the room as it rapidly approached. She reached up her free arm helplessly to at least try to block it, and yeah, maybe she might lose an arm after this, but at least it might stop her from getting slashed across her body and being horribly maimed or disfigured or, you know, from _death_ and hey she’d be twins with Shiro and—

“ _Don’t you fucking touch her!_ ”

Lance came out of nowhere and wedged himself between her and the sentry, body slamming her right out of the way as he blasted the sentry several times through its torso to the point that it was severed in half.

It shocked her right out of her stupor.

Pidge hit the ground and wheezed, the wind nearly knocked out of her when her back slammed against the concrete. The force had caused the rope of the hacking cord to snap in half. Lance couldn’t stop his momentum either and tripped on her legs, falling on top of her and just barely stopping his weight from crushing her fully by bracing his shaking arms on either side of her. They stared at each other wide eyed, breathing hard, and still reeling from what had been ticks from happening to her. He gave her a quick once over, dragging his gaze down the length of her to make sure she was okay.

_Thank God. She’s not hurt._

Pidge couldn’t help the small, bashful smile of gratitude that grew on her lips as she blinked up at him. For a very brief moment, Lance’s worried expression softened and his tense shoulders relaxed, relief lighting up in his eyes. His lips twitched too, like he was on the verge of laughing or smiling as well.

But then, as if remembering himself, he scowled and quickly rolled off with a wince and a sharp intake of breath.

“What the hell are you doing, Katie?!” Lance near shouted at her as he sat up and brushed off his tattered suit. She barely registered that he’d accidentally called her by her real name and felt her cheeks heat, guilt tugging at her heart. “Don’t just stand there and let yourself get attacked!”

_He could have killed you!_

“I… I wasn’t trying to!” Pidge snapped out of her trance, pulling herself up slowly and ignoring the sharp stab of pain that went through her back when her sore muscles moved. She shoved her hair out of her face impatiently. “My cord got stuck!”

“What were you even doing in here anyway?! Keith said you needed to find something, which is utterly stupid. Why would you ever think it was a good idea to come in here by yourself when we’re clearly under attack?!”

“Stop _yelling_ at me! It’s not stupid! I was…” Pidge was about to retort indignantly when she noticed Lance was gripping his right bicep, his face twisted in pain. When he looked down and moved his hand, there was ruddy red blood covering his palm and darkening the torn sleeves of his suit and dress shirt. The sentry had managed to slice up his arm. Her guilt intensified immediately. “Lance, your arm. Are you okay?”

He stared down at it with narrowed eyes. “It’s fine. Just a scratch.”

“It looks pretty deep. You should apply a tourniquet,” she said softly, reaching out to touch him. “You’re bleeding kind of—”

“I said it’s _fine_ ,” he ground out, yanking his arm just out of her reach and cringing from the motion. He snatched up his bayard from where he’d dropped it and retransformed it into his blaster. “We need to get out of here and go back to the others. Allura is in trouble.”

Pidge’s mouth snapped shut, infuriated by his cold attitude towards her. A very large part of her felt the pain welling in her heart at his rejection.

“Hey, _Asshole_!” she hissed, snapping up her own bayard and using it to cut away most of the bottom of the dress. She was tired of not being able to move her legs right. “Look, I know you’re mad at me but you don’t have to act like a major jackass during a battle. We’re brothers in arms! The least you could do is look at me!”

Lance shot off his gun without warning, and she inhaled sharply when the blast whizzed past her head and hit a sentry that had just entered the room and was charging its weapon. It exploded in a bunch of smoking metal parts.

“Now isn’t the time to be talking about this,” he replied sharply as he got to his feet and brushed off his pants.

He still wouldn’t look at her directly.

Pidge also jumped to her feet, ignoring her crying joints. “Then when exactly is, since _clearly_ , you’ve decided not to talk to me!”

Lance ignored her inquiry completely. “We need to go back to the others. Pay attention.”

_And don’t get hurt._

He made his way out of the room without waiting for her response, leaving it up to her to follow him. It made Pidge boiling mad that he was acting so coldly to her when they were supposed to work together. It didn’t matter how he felt about her at the moment, treating her like this in the heat of battle was just not okay.

Pidge was glad they were in the middle of a battle, because once she got to the conference room where Allura and Keith were simultaneously protecting the blubbering king and fighting off a seemingly neverending hoard, she let loose. She went a little berserk, wildly and ruthlessly destroying sentries left and right to let off some steam. Pidge wheel kicked a sentry hard in the head and it went flying into a pillar and she couldn’t deny that she’d briefly imagined it was Lance’s face. She caught Hunk’s look at her in total shock, but ignored it, immersing herself in the battle and fighting harder than she ever had before.

 

…

 

 _“If I launched now, I could get the Castle of Lions to catch up to the escaping ships within a varga.”_ Coran said over the projecting screen as he punched in coordinates. After dinner, he’d gone straight back to the castle as final backup should they have needed it, so he had been largely out of the way when danger arrived, much to their relief. _“They’re still trackable.”_

“Let them go,” Shiro responded to the holograph, rotating his good shoulder with a slight wince as he tried to loosen it up.

“So that’s it then…?” Keith asked, breathing hard as he shrunk his Marmora sword and put it back in his holster. “The remaining ones just retreat and we let them?”

_“I agree with Number 4. We ought to stop them before they get reinforcements.”_

“By the time we catch up to them, they’ll already have reinforcements backing them and we’ll be at a huge disadvantage.” Shiro shook his head and gestured to them all. “None of us are in any condition to be flying after a bunch of sentries or possible generals. We have injuries, Coran. It would be best for you to stay in the castle for when we return.”

 _“Hmm. Roger that, Number 1. I’ll be waiting for you all. Good work keeping them at bay.”_ Coran saluted and then cut the feedback.

Shiro’s holographic screen went blank and returned to his armour.

“At least send one of us!” Pidge exclaimed, her own breathing a little ragged after the intense battle. “They’re getting away!”

She was still hyped up and energetic, but above that, plenty pissed and needed some way to expend her negative energy. Shiro was right that some of them shouldn’t be fighting anymore—Lance was favouring his right arm, Keith’s temple was a little bloody, and Allura had taken a hard punch to the stomach and was currently heavily relying on Hunk to keep herself upright—but aside from a little fatigue, Pidge was still ready to go. She ignored the looks of disbelief her fellow teammates gave her.

“Pidge, I understand that you want to get the sentries, but that’s just your adrenaline speaking. Once that wears off, you’ll be exhausted. We need to regroup and debrief and figure out what to do about King Qylt.”

She blinked in surprise, suddenly remembering the cowardly king who was squatting behind a pillar nearby them, his head ducked under his arms as he whimpered in fear. The others seemed to remember that he was there too. At some other pillars, others of the king’s advisors were also hiding in fear, but most of them had long since taken off when the first signs of danger had presented themselves. The other advisors were watching them warily, but somewhat gratefully, though they refused to exit their hiding spots in the case of any more sudden danger.

“So… what exactly happened?” Keith asked, wiping at his head with his shirt sleeve and staining it red. Somewhere along the battle he’d shed his suit jacket, but in the process, pretty much left his shirt to be destroyed. It was torn in many places, covered in soot and grease and sweat and dried blood. Hunk, Lance, and Shiro’s clothing were also in similar disarray. “Before you called me and Pidge for backup.”

“We were having our congressional meeting,” Allura explained wearily, giving Hunk a grateful look when he helped her seat herself in a chair, “when the king got some message from his guard that the Galra sentries had infiltrated the castle and were cutting them down. He begged me for help since he doesn’t properly train his guard force and just relies on their experimental enhancements and weaponry.”

Keith scoffed and clicked his tongue in disgust. Pidge could definitely relate to the feeling.

Allura continued. “I know exactly how you feel. He had been told to plant some device on him that blocked my comm unit, but thankfully Lance was on the ceiling and out of range, overheard, and managed to get a message out about the impending attack seconds before the castle was bombed.”

“How come Keith and I didn’t get it?” Pidge asked, giving him a dirty look. Lance narrowed his eyes at her, and from his thoughts, she knew he was annoyed by her mistrust. But seriously, if Lance had purposely avoided relaying the message to them just to be petty to Pidge, they were duking it out, right there, right then.

“The signal was probably lost since you were so deep underground. When you didn’t respond, Shiro moved so he was closer to you guys so you could get the message.” He put a hand on his hip and rose a brow, a subtle look of disgust on his face. “Unless, you know, you didn’t hear it because you were too busy messing around with Keith or something.”

Hunk quickly interrupted when Pidge slowly turned to face him fully, her bayard hand twitching dangerously. “The sentries knew a lot about the castle too. They jammed the alarm signal and blew up central command to destroy system processes and made a simultaneous attack on the congressional meeting. Those were some of the most influential Qiolean citizens at the meeting. If they had gotten killed, it would have caused political turmoil. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the Galra were trying to destabilise _Qiolea_.”

“So can we truly say Qiolea was working with the Galra as we suspected, then?” Shiro’s brows furrowed pensively. “And why would King Qylt ask Allura for help?”

Keith growled under his breath, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair in aggravation. “This is so fucking annoying! I wish there was a way we could get answers from him.”

“Believe me, I tried…” Allura sighed under her breath and leaned her head back against the top headrest of the chair. “He refuses to say anything. Too scared of the Galra or whatever.”

_That quiznaking coot._

“Does he not understand that we probably saved his life tonight?!” Lance rolled his eyes in exasperation. “ _We’re_ the good guys! We can help him!”

“There’s nothing we can do. He’s not talking. We need to find an alternative,” Shiro said, sounding and looking exhausted out of his mind.

Pidge’s brows lifted high on her forehead. An alternative like reading his mind would work.

The king wasn’t talking, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t get answers. Her mind reading abilities weren’t perfectly controlled, but if there was one thing she knew, heightened states of emotions tended to leak thoughts all over the place. If she could ask him properly targeted questions, she might be able to get him to reveal the truth in his mind. Her special ability had been a rather large nuisance for the most part since she’d acquired it, but it would definitely come in handy for _this_.

“I have an idea,” Pidge said, drawing their attentions back to her. “Shiro, I need you to put the fear of God into King Qylt.”

For the second time that evening, everyone looked at her like she’d gone absolutely bat shit insane.

_Did Pidge hit her head?_

They all were thinking the same thing too, and she pushed aside her amusement to try to convince them somehow to trust what she was saying.

“I’m serious! I think we can get some answers! Just threaten him with your Galra arm and he’ll talk!”

Or at least, she would get him to talk and try to make it seem like she hadn’t pulled the thoughts from his head. There wouldn’t be an easy way to explain to the others how she was getting her information, but it was better than nothing. They were on a time crunch and needed answers immediately, but wouldn’t be able to achieve them unless they took some more intense and drastic measures. Pidge had the ability to do just that, so why not use it?

“P-Pidge!” Shiro spluttered, eyes widened comically, appalled at her suggestion. “We are paladins of Voltron! We can’t behave in an intimidating manner like that!”

“And how’s that working out for us, huh? Escaping Galra sentries and no answers. Are you really okay with that? Because I sure as hell am not.”

No one could respond to her words and although they looked conflicted or downright against the idea, she could feel them warming up to it only because they didn’t know what else to do. There were no other options.

“Just trust me. _Please_.” She pleaded with them, but turning specifically to Keith because he was the only one who was irritated enough to seriously be considering using force. He already had one foot firmly in agreement with her. “I know what I’m doing.”

Keith’s brows furrowed, but he must have seen the confidence in her gaze because he turned to Shiro and nodded. “I agree. We should try her method.”

Shiro looked aghast, but if there was anyone who could sway Shiro’s decisions with his opinions, it was Keith. Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose with a seriously fatigued look on his face.

_I swear these people have made me age fifty years in only two fucking days._

“I can’t believe I’m really considering this…”

“Pidge _is_ the smartest person on our crew,” Hunk said slowly, wringing his hands as he glanced at Pidge. She gave him a subtle smile of thanks for the support. “I don’t think threats and fear are the best way to go about this, but I know if anyone can come up with solutions, it’s her.”

Both Allura and Lance nodded, more on board with the idea now that two other paladins also were.

“ _Fine_. We’ll try it this way once, but _never_ again. We are aiming for peace in the universe, understand? So we can’t go around destabilising peace to achieve it!” Shiro scolded them all. “What do you need me to do?”

“Make him think you’re about to slice him into pieces and scare the shit out of him. I’ll help in interrogating him.”

There was hesitation from everyone again from the idea of her interrogating the king—she didn’t blame them since she was not only bad at communicating, but also a dreadful diplomat—but they shuffled over to the king, expressions serious or dark, or in the case of Hunk, trying to look aggressive, but only managing a small pout. King Qylt watched them approach with wide eyes and squeaked in fright when Shiro yanked him up by the front of his lapel and held him way up in the air. He activated the hot pink sword of his arm and held it up at the king.

“We’ve had enough of your silence.” Shiro growled in a low, dangerous voice, even scaring Pidge at how intense a threatening vibe he was radiating. “You’re going to give us answers or you can consider this your last living day.”

“ _Shiro_!” Allura gasped, startled by how extreme he’d taken the hostility.

Even Pidge was surprised at the level of fear he was inflicting on the king, because she’d meant to scare him a little, but King Qylt was actually pissing his pants in fright. Quite literally. She could distinctly smell the urine. Lance and Hunk were watching the exchange in horrified silence (and barely concealed amusement).

 _Mmm..._ **_Raw_ ** _me, daddy._

Pidge was going to vomit. She did everything in her power to pretend like she had _not_ just heard Keith’s disgusting thought.

(Although she couldn’t deny that Shiro _was_ pretty sexy acting like this).

“I-I don’t have any answers I can give you!”

She took a deep breath and tuned out the wild thoughts of her crew as well as some of the frightened advisors also hiding in the room. It took a little bit to exercise total focus on the king’s thoughts and her head throbbed from the effort of keeping other voices out, but she managed it. Green praised her excellent efforts as she walked up to the king, eyes zoned in on him as his mindset filled her head and she was overtaken by his panic and overwhelming fright.

“You’re lying,” she responded, glaring up at him and willing herself not to get overtaken by his emotions to the point she exhibited them. “Tell the truth. I bet you were working with the Galra and ambushed us because you were trying to assassinate the princess.”

She gave Shiro a poignant look, and he understood her meaning. Shiro shook the king roughly, sticking the glowing sword close to his eye. “Is this true?!”

“What?!” King Qylt squawked, face turning red. “Of course not!”

_I wasn’t working with the Galra! Well, not fully._

It was working!

She kept her excitement at bay. “Then why did you want Allura at the meeting by herself?”

“Because she’s powerful!”

_Commander Vhruk didn’t want her in the way using magic when they retrieved the weapon we made. I didn’t realise they were going to go **through** us too!_

“Let me guess, you made a deal with the Galra, they exploited you into making some high end weapon and then betrayed you. You thought you would be safe as long as you followed their every order.”

He choked, the expression on his face making it perfectly clear that she’d hit the nail on the head. The other paladins looked at Pidge in complete surprise. Even Shiro broke character for a moment to turn and stare at her.

“How did you…?”

She ignored the king’s stupefaction and nudged Shiro since the connection to king’s emotions had lightened up and petered out a bit. Shiro snapped out of it, curling his fist tighter on the collar of the king’s tunic and making King Qylt whimper. He struggled against Shiro’s grip, kicking his legs helplessly to try to find purchase somewhere to put his feet.

“So why’d you invite us to your planet to discuss the alliance then?” Shiro questioned gruffly. “And don’t try to lie. Nothing you say will get past _her_.”

King Qylt seemed to contemplate Pidge, watching her with wary eyes to see if Shiro was bluffing.

“Might as well just tell us the truth now.” Pidge merely tilted her head sideways and grinned, all teeth. “Or you _can_ lie, I’ll reveal it, and then Shiro over here will gouge out your eye.”

The king straightened up fast. “Commander Vhruk told me to invite you on our planet to keep tabs on where you all were, but personally, I just wanted to see if you had anything better to offer! The Galra promised me a whole quadrant of the universe if I made the first sample of a special weapon with their nanotech because they were sure with it they could reform their empire. But I wanted to see if Voltron might have a better deal since you managed to wipe out Zarkon and his empire! I just wanted to know who the highest bidder was!”

So he really was just a shitty, greedy businessman. Not surprising, but there were some seriously shocked gasps from a few of the advisors, and Pidge lost some concentration when their voices of disdain and disgust in their leader filtered in her head. Dammit. Their emotions were getting stronger, and thus diminishing her connection to the king. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, squeezing the other distracting voices out and nearly wincing when the dull throbbing of a headache began to form at the top of her head.

She was aware of Keith staring at her with narrowed eyes and she heard his suspicious thoughts shortly after.

_Wait, Galra nanotech? Is he talking about that thing we reverse engineered in the Castle of Lions?_

Yes, he was right. And now she knew for certain that the purpose of the Galra nanotech she’d gotten in her was as a weapon. What if the Galra had created it knowing it would cause the user to develop some sort of abilities similar to her own? She’d thought the mind reading was some weird side effect to a potential bomb-like weapon she’d inhaled, but what if the effects _were_ the weapon?

A blessing and a curse.

She was stuck hearing people’s thoughts even when she didn’t want to, but if she knew what her enemies were thinking… This could come in handy for spying purposes as well. No difficulties reading the expressions and emotions of the subject. She’d be able to determine right off the bat if they were lying or not, provided she could make their emotional state much higher. And she could predict what they were going to do because she could read their mind. She understood why the Galra had made a weapon like this, but that really did mean that in the wrong hands, this could be very dangerous.

“Shiro, you can put him down.”

Shiro set the King down gently and retracted his weapon, taking a step back almost apologetically, though he still kept up his impassive expression. The king’s legs gave out and he fell to his knees on the ground, a puddle of cowardice.

“What is the purpose of this weapon?” Pidge asked, her stomach feeling a little sick.

“It’s supposed to be a mind control device. Galra generals with the right physiology would be able to use their minds to control other species. I’m not sure of the details in full because they didn’t tell me, but it has to do with some special collar they have and the nanotech.”

“…And what happens without the collar?” Pidge wasn’t aware her hand was shaking until Hunk slipped his own in hers briefly to give her a gentle squeeze.

“I don’t know! It’s supposed to enhance Galra soldier abilities!” He really didn’t. He knew about as much information as they would offer him. And that was barely anything. He hadn’t really questioned the Galra commander, just done as he was told in greedy excitement. “Look, I really didn’t think they would attack my castle as well! He probably thought I defected! And now I’m a target since you fought them off and made it look like I really was using your help!”

“What?!” Lance spat, finally speaking up after watching the entire exchange in distaste. “You asked for our help! If we hadn’t intervened, your castle could have been blown to bits! Did it ever occur to you that they were using you to achieve their goals?”

“You invited us to your planet and brought this issue on because of your greed!” Hunk said emphatically. “They probably never had any intention of letting you get a whole quadrant.”

“But they promised!”

“Well what did you expect when you put your trust in known evildoers?” Allura responded with so much dry sarcasm that Pidge was proud.

“You tried to play us and put Allura and all of us in danger.” Lance continued on angrily. “You could have gotten her killed!”

_Better her than me. In fact, better all of you than me._

Pidge stiffened, her hands clenching into fists.

That did it.

She grit her teeth and stormed up to him furiously, her anger fuelled by her disgust at the fact that the king cared little about their lives. She’d had it up to here with this shithead. From Day 1 he’d been a total nuisance, an overall jackass and it was about time someone put him in his place.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve treating us like we’re beneath you when we just saved your sorry ass life!” She yelled in his face, pointing her bayard right in his face. “You better shape up and show some respect and gratitude, you piece of shit, or we’ll let the Galra waste you while we stand by and watch!”

He blanched and choked on whatever words he had to say as he stared up at her fearfully.

Shiro, however, was not having it. She felt his anger before he even spoke. “Pidge! That’s enough! We’re done with the interrogation!”

They were all appalled by her aggression. But that was because none of them had heard what the king had said in his mind. As far as they were concerned, she’d gone after the king for unclear reasons.

“Pidge, what the hell are you doing?!” Keith grabbed her around her waist and pulled her back from the terrified king. “We don’t need the threats now! Stop!”

“ _Seriously_ , Keith?” She glared at him over her shoulder, trying to elbow him off of her, but he only tightened his hold. “ _This_ coming from the guy who threatened Lubos?! This asshole doesn’t even care if we ended up as collateral damage in his scheming!”

King Qylt cowered into himself a little bit, trying to disappear from the point of focus.

_Someone keep this rabid tanuki bitch away from me!_

“I grew up from those days.” Keith flushed a bit in embarrassment at the reminder of his impetuous actions from years ago. The damn liar! He was only trying to impress Shiro! “We made our point and got our information from him. Chill out, Pidge! We’ll deal with him accordingly.”

_What’s gotten into you? You’ve been acting **insane** since we started fighting. _

And he wasn’t the only one who thought so. Even Hunk who’d been making possible excuses for Pidge’s behaviour all through this ordeal was now wondering if she was seriously ill. Her teammates were staring at her in serious concern. Shiro’s expression radiated disapproval now, and Pidge felt thoroughly chastised. She was acting like a child. There were better ways to deal with her irritation and she was definitely not going about this the right way, even if she was the only one who could hear how horrible the king was.

She sighed, letting the calm of Keith’s mind wash over her as she relaxed in his hold. She stared at the ground, chewing on the inside of her mouth in shame. He was right. From their standpoint, nothing she’d been doing made any sense so it had looked like she was seriously out of control. No wonder they all thought something was wrong with her.

“So are we done with this interrogation or what?” Lance grumbled all of a sudden, addressing Shiro, but he was looking at Pidge. Pidge wrinkled her nose at him, thrown off by the stench of envy in his thoughts. What the hell was his problem _now_? “There’s no reason to stay here anymore, right?”

Shiro’s brow furrowed. “Lance, we’re not quite—”

“In case you didn’t notice, my arm is still bleeding heavily, and I think I have nerve damage since I can’t move my pinky so I’d like to get this treated before it’s permanent. I’ll see you all later.” Without another word, Lance shoved both hands in the pockets of his tattered suit pants and dragged his feet out of the meeting hall.

They all looked at each other, unsure what to do. Pidge watched his retreating back, wondering why the last vestiges of emotion she felt from him were of total defeat. They had literally just succeeded in uncovering the king’s ugly scheming.

“I’ll go check on him.” Hunk sighed, then threw Pidge a sharp look. “You should too, later. You both _need to_ talk.”

“You’re right,” Pidge said tartly, stepping out of Keith’s hold and crossing her arms in front of her chest, “considering he owes me an apology for how he treated me during the battle today.”

“And _you_ owe _him_ a major apology for lying to him, which you still haven’t done yet. Do you know how important your one-on-one nights are to him?”

Clearly, Hunk had had a chance to talk to Lance between their lab work and now since he was acting all abrasive towards her. And that wasn’t fair! She’d tried to find Lance all day, but he was doing his damned hardest to avoid her no matter what. How was she supposed to apologise when he wasn’t even giving her a chance to?

“Not surprised you took his side, Hunk,” she couldn’t help but say bitterly, defensive only because she knew he was right. Still didn’t make Lance’s treatment of her okay though. “I’m not wrong here!”

“You’re _both_ wrong. And you’re both acting like idiots,” Hunk said resolutely with a small shake his head. “I’m on the side of peace and love and harmony, and neither of you guys are trying to aim for that, so no. I’m not on his side. But I’m not on your side either. I’m heading out, Shiro.”

“Okay.” He sighed. “Just make sure he gets healed properly.”

_And maybe get him a drink or something, for fuck’s sake. Goddamn **teenagers** and their motherfucking hormones. Thank God Keith isn’t hormonal like that._

Shiro rubbed at his forehead in exhaustion, and Pidge really started to notice the lines of fatigue on his face. Shiro had fought on his own to limit the amount of sentries that were trying to get past him. He must have been absolutely tired. He put on a brave face to support them all, but even Pidge recognised that he needed rest too. And from what he was thinking, he probably had a lot less energy dealing with the rest of them and their drama. He was trying to be a good leader and stay open and available to talk for them, but they weren’t making it easy.

“So uh… what do we do now?” Allura asked, changing the subject from the awkward confrontation, and gesturing with her chin to the quivering king who had now started to sob on the floor. “Maybe we should just leave Qiolea entirely?”

“You can’t just leave me here!” King Qylt blubbered, grasping the hem of Allura’s dress as if he would refuse to let go. She glowered down at him, kicking her leg a bit to shake him off. “I’m not safe from the Galrans! They’ll be back! And my advisors are probably going to crucify me!”

“Quite frankly, I don’t see that as our concern,” Pidge grumbled, and Keith snorted a little under his breath. “You reap what you sow.”

“Please! I’ll pay you! Gold, rubies! Anything you want!”

“We don’t need payment. And Pidge, we can’t just let an entire planet fall under Galra occupation just because of the selfish actions of one monarch.” Shiro turned to the king. “But you are right that the sentries didn’t acquire the weapon, and now that they are escaping on a ship back to their leader, I think it’s safe to say there will be another attack. They don’t know you’ve been compromised, right?”

He swallowed. “No? I don’t know!”

“Well, either way, we need you to act like you haven’t spilled confidential information to us so that we can lure out whoever is really in charge and maybe get closer to stopping another militia of this insurgent unit in this quadrant. If they contact you, respond as you normally would, and just act as if we tried to help you of our own accord, but that you didn’t team up with us. If they think you’ve revealed the situation to us, they won’t bother coming back.”

No, Pidge was pretty sure they would be coming back for the weapon, compromised king or not. The only thing was, they wouldn’t be able to find it since she’d ingested it. But Shiro was right that they did have the advantage of using it as bait and a lure to get this Commander Vhruk out of hiding. They could really use it as an opportunity to stop the Galra forces.

“There might be a huge battle with a full Galra fleet ahead though. We don’t know the actual size of the commander’s group of insurgents,” Keith said, “so I’ll warn the Blade to be alert for incoming enemies. And to look into this Commander Vhruk person.”

“Good call, Keith. In the meantime, we’ll all rest up.”

“Wait! Please!” King Qylt interrupted, clasping his hands together and begging them when he sensed the finality of the meeting. “Take me with you! Let me stay in your castle!”

Pidge and Allura shared an ‘are you kidding me’ look with each other before simultaneously rolling their eyes.

“Please! I’m begging you!” And he really did slide forward on his knees, wrapping his arms around Allura’s legs and clinging to her like some sort of tick. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and covered her nose with one hand when the scent of urine drifted clear in the air. “Just let me stay in your castle. I won’t feel safe anywhere else! I won’t be a bother, and I won’t disturb you all! I promise I’m not trying to trick you! I just want somewhere safe to sleep!”

Pidge looked at Shiro and shrugged. He really didn’t have any foul intentions towards them. He was genuinely scared being in his own castle not just because they’d gotten attacked and security was down, but also because he was so sure one of his own members of the court might try to kill him in his sleep.

To be fair, Pidge actually thought that would likely happen too. The advisors still remaining in the hall had some pretty dark emotions coming from them.

“Why should we?” Allura responded angrily, trying futilely to get the leech off of her. “This is _your_ castle. Handle your business.”

“Look! Your plan is contingent upon me being alive, right?! And if you leave me here, I might not be alive and then Commander Vhruk won’t be in contact with me and you won’t have a source of intel from me! Not to mention if I don’t respond, they’ll think the castle fell or was destroyed and won’t come.”

Keith frowned and even Shiro had to pause over that. Because as annoying as the stupid king was, he definitely had a point. They needed him alive to a certain extent.

King Qylt caught onto their hesitation to deny him again and his face lit up. “See?! You agree with me!”

“I don’t. You can choke,” Pidge muttered, and Shiro shushed her though his expression belied his amusement.

“We’ll let you stay in the Castle of Lions, but only as long as the Galra remain radio silent. Once we get any sort of movement or communication of status, you’re out.”

“You won’t regret this!” He chirped happily, taking Allura’s hand and dropped several peck kisses all over the top and slightly up her arm. She scoffed and yanked her arm away in utter disgust.

“I already do…” Shiro said just enough under his breath that only Pidge heard it, but he cleared his throat and stood authoritatively. “For now, let’s get our injuries taken care of and then we can start making concrete plans and finalising details. We’ll need to be prepared.”

They headed on their way out of Qiolea castle and made the relatively short trek back to the Castle of Lions partially hidden in a mountain range on the planet. The king jumped about ten feet when the mice suddenly appeared in front of them to greet them and subsequently stuck close to Allura the whole time, much to her irritation. She let them know she would go settle King Qylt in a spare room so he could freshen up before going to Coran.  Keith instead headed straight for the med bay, deciding to get his check-up done and over with so that he could head to the Blade base on a nearby planet to update the members on what was going on.

Keith seemed to have forgotten about the Plox weapon mix-up, and Pidge was glad because she wasn’t ready to talk about _that_ whole mess on top of all that she was already dealing with. Just as she started to part ways to head to Coran as well, Shiro took her wrist and held her back.

“Pidge, do you want to talk about what happened back there?” he asked tentatively, approaching the topic carefully so as not to incite her wrath or something.

“ _No_.” Shiro’s anxious frown made her bite back her scathing retort, and she huffed in exasperation. Yes she was acting petulant, but she didn’t care. She wanted out of this stupid dress, she wanted a nice hot shower, and she _really_ needed to see Coran about checking her body fluids to see just how this weapon was reacting in her body. “Nothing happened. I was sick of being dragged around by that piece of shit king and felt he really needed a proper dose of threatening.”

“Not that. Well, _yes_ that too. Your aggression post-interrogation was inappropriate, Pidge. I would expect that from Keith given the proper provocation, but you?” He shook his head as if still in disbelief that she was capable of that kind of behaviour. “But I mean the Lance thing. You said something to Hunk about the way he behaved during battle. What did you mean?”

She chewed on her lower lip, groaning under her breath. It was just her luck that Shiro was in one of his inquisitive, observant moods that day. “He was just acting very standoffish. And it upset me because we’re usually always so attentive to each other during battle, but it was like he didn’t want me near him or something. That’s no way to act when we need to watch out for each other in a fight against enemies.”

Although, he had saved her life. She wasn’t sure if she’d thanked him for that.

“It really isn’t.” Shiro scratched the back of his head. “But that’s not why it really upsets you.”

Shiro was too damn perceptive for his own good. “…and he’s actually been pretty successful at ignoring me. And I don’t like it.”

She felt kind of dumb admitting it or like some melodramatic high schooler or something, but it really had affected her more than she’d expected.

“Well, the fact that you’ve noticed his absence is a good sign. It means you’re aware he has grievances with you.”

His tone bothered her. Was he calling her oblivious too? But he continued before she could ask for clarification on what he meant.

“Pidge, Lance has been a constant in your life for so long. Don’t take him for granted.”

“I’m not, Shiro! I legitimately don’t understand where most of his anger is coming from. I mean, I get the whole lying thing which makes sense, but everything else came out of nowhere and doesn’t make any fucking sense and I wish he would just stop acting like this and tell me what’s up.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what conversations you two have had about your issues, but is it possible he might have already told you? It might be worthwhile to revisit and analyse your conversations.”

“Maybe some other time.” Pidge looked away from his imploring gaze, feeling kind of shitty for making Shiro’s life harder. But the sting of Lance’s shut out still felt like a raw, bleeding wound. “He’s not talking to me right now, and I’m not going to chase after someone who wants nothing to do with me.”

“That’s fine, Pidge. But I’ve told Lance this and now I’m telling you: I can’t let your tensions derail the dynamic of our team. We need to be able to form Voltron, especially now that we might have another dangerous battle on our hands. Our time is limited, so please see to it that you make some sort of effort to reconcile as soon as possible.”

Pidge clenched her jaw, that prickling feeling of indignance rearing its ugly head again. She couldn’t help it though. It seemed like everyone was acting like this was her doing, when _Lance_ wanted to avoid her. It wasn’t like she didn’t want to talk to him, but being rejected by him was terrifying. She didn’t want to be the one to reach out first because if Lance rebuffed her again, she probably would cry. And Pidge had to protect her own feelings too. She didn’t like feeling vulnerable.

“By the way, I was very impressed by your ability to draw those right conclusions during the interrogation. You hit the right points so effectively. It was almost like you were reading his mind or something.”

Pidge chuckled and nervously started to braid her tangled hair. “It’s only because in my research I managed to pull some strange anomalies that helped me make the right connections to what he was saying. He just fed into my suspicions.”

Best she could say, but Shiro seemed to think it was reasonable enough.

“Hm. Well good job.” And as always, he gave her a gentle pat on the head in the way he always did when he was praising her. She smiled, pleased that he was overall more impressed by her success than appalled by her aggression. “Go to Coran and get your injuries checked now. I want to make sure we’re all in top shape and ready for whatever will be thrown at us.”

She nodded, watching him walk away and wondering if she should have told him that the weapon she’d actually broken was the very weapon the Galra were trying to steal, but she wasn’t ready for all the necessary explanations that would have to follow. They knew what the Galra weapon the Qioleans made did. They knew Pidge might have inhaled the weapon she broke. Who was to say they wouldn’t jump to somewhat correct conclusions?

She shuffled on her way to the med bay, feeling conflicted.

 

…

 

Pidge stepped out of the steaming pod and let out a sigh, a chill passing through her and her skin still tingling from the components of the quintessence healing. It always made her feel weird whenever she was done, but her back _had_ stopped throbbing and hurting, so she knew it was successful.

Coran observed her body statistics on a screen with a satisfied nod, stroking his moustache with a smile.

“Well your diagnostic says physically you’re fine. I don’t know about your psyche though.” He turned and faced her with a concerned look on his face. “Are you alright? Apparently you were acting some strange way during the battle, and Shiro asked me to make sure you weren’t suffering emotionally.”

This could work in her favour since she needed to check her body’s fluid.

“I’m fine, but it’s just that…” Pidge tapered off, pretending to be uneasy about something and then glancing at Coran like there was something bothering her.

“Yes, what’s the matter?”

“Well, human women always need a complete blood work test checked around the time of our cycles.”

Coran looked confused for a second before his expression lit up. “Oh! You mean the comma thing you told Allura about!”

“Period,” she corrected. “And yes. It’s for my iron levels. Also, you need to check my cerebrospinal fluid. Do you have a needle you can put in the lumbar part of my spine?”

“A needle in your spine?! Whatever for?!” He looked absolutely horrified and Pidge rushed to clarify what she meant.

“Right, so when Altean women gave birth, did doctors administer any kind of medication to dull the nerves and ease the pain?”

He smoothed out the edge of his moustache. “My memory isn’t the greatest, but yes, as a matter of fact, I believe they did. In the back.”

_I do remember it clearly didn’t work for her Highness though. She kicked Alfor in the face and broke his nose giving birth to Allura._

“Okay, good.” Pidge continued, hiding her amusement and putting some quick commands into the castle system to pull up a chart of a human spinal cord and its different layers. “On earth, it’s called an epidural. But for my period test, I need the reverse of that, where you take the clear fluid _out_. It’s just like drawing blood, only not from a vein and from this region, called the subarachnoid space.”

“Well why not draw from the epidural space since you said it’s related to the same procedure as an epidural, yes?”

She hurried to come up with a reasonable excuse. “Umm… that’s because… I’m not pregnant! Only pregnant women get it from there.”

“I see,” he said in interest. “I do believe we have the tool necessary for the procedure you need. I’ll be right back!”

Coran disappeared off towards the supply room for the med bay and Pidge sat on one of the examination tables they’d installed a while ago. She felt bad about lying to Coran, but the alternative was again, revealing her current situation and she didn’t think it would be wise to bring it up at the moment. It would complicate everything and they’d ask so many questions.

Coran returned shortly after with a huge medical cart full of materials and supplies from needle tips to collecting jars, sterilisation materials and more. Pidge looked at the sheer amount of stuff and she vaguely remembered a distinct, long-forgotten fear of doctor’s offices from her childhood when she’d had to have so many allergy tests and exams. She swallowed, fisting her hands on her lap and taking slow breaths in and out.

He prepared the materials for blood drawing, sliding on gloves and holding up the small needle and syringe. “How come you’ve never needed to do this procedure before? If I recall correctly, you mentioned this as a monthly occurrence.”

Pidge frowned, giving Coran her right arm for the blood drawing. He cleaned off the skin carefully and located the vein with concentration on his face. She barely flinched when he pushed the needle in, but she did have to look away as he pulled the lever back to collect blood in the tube. Something about the whole process made her a bit queasy.

“Well, I’m nearing eighteen and uh… that’s when women start getting it done, but who knows the outcome of our upcoming battle, so I thought I’d get my testing early.”

“Hmm, makes sense.” Coran pulled out the needle and pressed some gauze tightly on the wound as he slapped a bandage on it and then wrapped up her elbow in some more light gauze. He removed the gloves and dumped them in the portable trash along with what he’d used. The blood he put in a carrier tube. “By the way, what do you want me to do with the samples?”

“Could you run a test on them so the castle can analyse their components? Oh, but don’t look at my results or tell anyone. It’s _super_ private.”

He straightened up immediately to full height, beating a hand to his chest. “Oh, of course, Number 5! Even on Altea it is quite inappropriate to discuss a female’s reproductive system and components without her consent!”

“Right,” Pidge responded, watching warily as he pulled up the other part of the test. Her eyes zoned in on the giant syringe and the absolutely big ass needle poker. It was several times longer than the one for drawing blood and not to mention definitively thicker. She felt her heart stutter briefly when she thought of that impaling her back. “Uh, C-Coran? That’s a pretty big needle.”

“Well yes!” He grinned in fascination, pulling on a second set of gloves. “I’ll need to dig into muscle and sinew and ligaments and the membranous linings just to get through your vertebrae! We wouldn’t want the needle breaking halfway through the procedure and getting stuck!”

She paled as he laughed at his own comment, trying to keep herself from vomiting. “You’re going to give me anaesthesia, right?”

He frowned as he inserted the needle point into the collecting syringe. “I suppose I could. Alteans don’t normally need it, but I suppose human physiology is much more frail, and you are a very small woman.”

He rummaged in the caddy for a box of medication and procured a little black pill with a skull on it. Pidge took it with a frown and eyed it suspiciously.

“…Coran, you sure this won’t kill me instead?”

“Oh no, you’ll be fine. That was just a little joke by the pharmaceutical planet that produced it. Dreadful sense of humour, that lot.”

Pidge took a leap of faith and popped it in her mouth as Coran shone a light in her eyes to figure out when it would take effect. She forced herself to swallow it down, for a brief moment catching a hint of a flavour that could have had her hurling out everything she had eaten.

“You should be feeling it in about five ticks. It won’t put you to sleep, but your body will feel weird.”

And sure enough, Pidge felt herself lose sensation in her body. Well, she could still feel her body, but it was suddenly like everything dulled and tingled all at once. Everything around her slowed and she felt like she was partially floating on some soft bed of clouds.

“Whoa…” she breathed out, blinking out the weird bubbles in her vision as Coran flashed the light in her eyes. “This feels like THC…”

She knew because of that one time when she’d visited Matt’s rebel base for his birthday one year, and Nyma had somehow managed to get her hands on some super rare weed from Earth that Matt had let Pidge try too. It had been a pretty wild experience, but it had nothing on _this_.

“You’ve been studying Altean, correct?” Pidge nodded and felt the whole room spin, and Coran smiled proudly at her. He pulled up a holographic screen that he shifted to face her back. It was like an x-ray machine that allowed him to see the outline of the layers of her body. “Alright, sit up straight to keep your back arched and start counting backwards by sevens from seven hundred in Altean.”

As Pidge began to do it, her mind kind of loopy and struggling to focus on the numbers much less do the count, Coran moved behind her. She could feel something sliding dully on her skin and then there was a small pinch, like she’d gotten poked by a sewing needle. The rest of the sensation was lost on her since she was so focused on her numerical task, irritated that she couldn’t get it right even though she knew how to do it. She hadn’t even realised that Coran had long finished until he patted her shoulder and wiggled the closed vial of the clear-ish viscous cerebrospinal fluid at her.

“You did well, young paladin.”

“Thank you, Coran.” She was sincerely glad that human physiology was similar enough to Altean that she doesn’t have to worry about him botching up the procedure. That and the fact that Coran was well versed on medical techniques. If they ever got back to earth, he could really advance medicine and medical techniques with his expertise. “This’ll help me a lot.”

“I’ll go run the tests in my med lab then. Go on and get to your room to lie down.” He gave her a soft pat on the back and urged her in the direction of their quarters. “That was some pretty potent stuff I gave you. Once it starts to wear off, you’ll be knocked out for several varga to expel it from your system. And you’ll be very hungry when you wake up. Can you get back on your own or would you like me to accompany you?”

“I’ll be fine.” She shook her head, though she did feel a little hazy. “Let me know when it’s ready, Coran.”

She left the med bay, using the wall to guide her to her own room until she was finally at her door. Pidge barely registered she’d stripped out of the healing pod spandex and plopped face down on her bed. The blue and green space caterpillars settled beside her head. She let out a heavy sigh as fatigue crashed into her and dragged her violently to the land of dreams. She gladly let it, her head lolling to the side as she started to lose consciousness.

Now she could finally figure out if this thing in her head was friend or foe.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: I updated two chapters at once; you might have accidentally skipped ch. 5

Pidge sighed dejectedly as she played absentmindedly with the bubbles surrounding her and floating on top of the water of the bathtub. A little tuft of steam left her lips from how high she had the temperature set for her bath. It was a little rejuvenating though, and she felt rather refreshed sitting in the heated water. She’d long since scrubbed at her skin with soap and washed off the grime from the previous day’s battle and now had progressed to the lounging portion of her cleansing activities.

She’d woken up from her anaesthetic induced sleep with a ravenous appetite and very empty, growling stomach. Coran had been right. She felt like she could eat an entire elephant. A quick glance at the time had told her that she’d slept through the night and even into the next morning and afternoon. Several messages had been left from the others giving her advice on how to ease up pain—and some alarming message from Allura to cover herself with honey—and she wondered what the heck excuse Coran had told them that she was dealing with for them to have left comments like that.

(Well, everyone except Lance).

Hunk had added Lance’s name on the cute little get well card he’d made her too, but she knew what his chicken scrawl looked like, and Hunk couldn’t emulate it even though he’d tried. It was a nice gesture, but it did nothing to stop her disappointment. Lance was still mad.

She’d dragged herself to the kitchen in search of something to eat only to realise everyone had already had lunch by that point. Hunk, bless his perfect soul, had left her a generous helping of leftover stir fry with buckwheat noodles and a hearty slice of the cake he’d made for them all to celebrate no one dying the night before. (It definitely made her forgive him for yesterday’s little spat). Pidge devoured everything and even added three bowls of food goo to her meal before she’d finally quelled the raging monster in her stomach. By the time she’d gone about her business for the day, she was convinced that Coran _had_ given her weed or some drug with similar effects.

Pidge was shocked that it had taken her nearly twelve varga to shuck off the rest of the effects of that intense Altean anaesthetic. She didn’t blame them for having some really potent stuff considering how extreme that needle was. She wasn’t even scared of needles, but that one had been an absolute nightmare.

Coran had told her it must have taken her a while to get over it because of how miniscule her body size was. He’d also that told her the results of her testing should be ready in the next quintant or so when she’d gone to the med lab to see if there was any news for her.

Because she’d spent most of her morning and afternoon sleeping, she’d been restless and bored. Neither Keith nor Hunk had been available to hang out—Hunk oddly not responding to her texts and Keith apparently still at the Blade of Marmora base—and Lance was clearly out of the question. Although, she wondered if the universe had seriously been conspiring to make her life absolute hell because she’d run into him _three_ damn times while searching for something to do.

Pidge had tried to go to the library, only to see Lance searching for a book. She’d promptly turned around and run out when he saw her. When she’d gone to Hunk’s secret stash in yellow’s hangar for some candy, Lance had come in. They’d made awkward eye contact before she’d snatched up some peanut butter cookies and stormed out before she could see his eyes take on some blank look or something.

But the worst time had been when King Qylt had been badgering her in the observation deck while she was trying to rig a tracker to see if she could figure out where the escaped Galra sentries might have disappeared off to. Finding out could aid them in figuring out the Galra base. Shiro had sent Lance to bring King Qylt to the main hall to discuss some things to prepare for the next attack. He had addressed King Qylt the whole time, ignoring her presence completely and acting like she didn’t exist.

Not even looking at her once.

It was so rude and annoying and pissed her off so much (and also hurt her terribly) that Pidge had quite purposely activated her bayard as she brushed past him on her way out and electrocuted him. His high pitched yelp of pain had been extremely satisfying to hear at the time, but the more she mulled over their terrible interactions, the less angry she felt and the more that sharp ache in her chest whenever she thought of Lance returned.

He’d really made good on his promise that he wanted time away from her. Pidge really felt like throwing up. Her heart was clenching so tight in her chest that she wondered if she was going to die of heartbreak at the tender age of 17.

Which was why she’d decided to skip dinner entirely and just take a long hot bubble bath to relax.

The only problem was her mind ceaselessly returned to the conflicting emotions of which she’d been suffering. Specifically, Hunk, Keith, and maybe Shiro’s comments on how oblivious she was over Lance. Now that she had her blood work and CSF tests done, more weight had lifted from her shoulders, but with more space in her brain, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Objectively, anyone would be mad if their best friend ditched them and lied about it, but Lance’s focal point seemed to be _Keith_. Now that she thought about it, he’d brought Keith up several times too for stupid reasons. Too many times for it to be a coincidence. He was obviously jealous of Keith, but the only thing she could think was that maybe because Keith had gotten cool missions or something. Or maybe that she’d gotten to go on cool solo missions with Keith? Maybe Lance really hadn’t been able to let go of the old rivalry.

But that was her first thought, and if they kept calling her oblivious, maybe that wasn’t right. Plus he’d imagined her kissing Keith which was admittedly weird and had nothing to do with a rivalry. Why had he even jumped to conclusions like that? Was it because they’d mentioned staying up all night and that was the only thing he could think of that a guy and a girl could do when hanging out all night?

Lance _wasn’t_ stupid though. He couldn’t really be so one track minded that that was the only thing he could assume, especially considering Pidge wasn’t necessarily a sexual girl.

But then again, he’d imagined himself with Pidge in a similar way, so maybe that really was the way his thoughts tended to go. Maybe that was the way his thoughts had _always_ been when she hung out with him alone.

Pidge growled and stood from the bubble bath, fed up yet again because she couldn’t find easy answers. Anyway, she’d been in there for several varga and her fingertips had become like prunes by that point. She stooped and drained the tub, deciding to wash it some other time. Besides, she and Allura were the only ones to use it anyway. Pidge had introduced Allura to the appeal of bubble baths once, and she’d made Coran install a private tub for the two of them in a separate girl’s bathroom.

Pidge rinsed off the bubbles in the adjacent shower and then towelled off before wrapping herself in her fluffy green towel. She left the steamy bathroom to the attached powder room, looking at her reflection in the mirror. She looked more drained than usual, her expression dull, and freckles on her nose and cheeks standing out a little too sharply against her pallor.

The worst part was not knowing what to do. She was just bad at dealing with people even after all these years. She could make friends with them and joke around and stuff, but there were limitations to her ability to associate with people, especially when it came to all of their problems. Yes, it’d been years since she was a friendless, mocked nerd who hung out with only her brother and parents, but her isolation had been for most of her life and left a lasting impact. She was used to handling her own business and could figure that shit out easy, but when other people got involved, suddenly it was all ‘Error 404 – Not Found’ and ‘Pidge.exe has stopped working’.

Lance’s problems were like a maze where whenever she thought she’d made progress, she hit a dead end and then the whole maze would change into a different configuration than what she’d just learned to navigate. She really had a mentality similar to a robot, she knew that, but it wasn’t like she could just flip a switch and suddenly learn how to read people and react accordingly.

“The irony astounds me…” she muttered, wrinkling her nose at her reflection after splashing water on her face. It was crazy being able to look into people’s minds and still knowing absolutely nothing.

Either way, Pidge _had to_ apologise to Lance, but whenever he acted like a jerk, she lost all desire to patch things up with him and got so mad. She really wished he didn’t have that effect on her, but she couldn’t help it. He mattered a lot to her, and she liked him, so the way he treated her held a lot of weight. Not to mention up until recently, they’d gotten along swimmingly. This was very new for them and Pidge just didn’t know how to deal with it.

Somewhere along the way some turn must have happened, a shift, and Lance must have jumped aboard, but Pidge clearly got left at the station. Now they weren’t understanding each other, and it had fucked up their close relationship.

Pidge let out a deep breath, splashing water on her face once more and then slapping her cheeks to stop thinking about it. What she needed was a distraction.

Once she got to her room, she would get back to work on one of her smaller projects or something and hope that she could calm down.

 

…

 

As Pidge roamed the halls slowly on the way to her quarters, Allura rounded a corner at breakneck speed, and the princess’s face lightened up when she saw her. The mice were resting on top of her shoulders and one was sleeping on her head.

She matched her pace with Pidge’s with a smile. “Oh! Pidge, how are you feeling? I’d yet to see you today.”

“I’m alright. Definitely not as bad as whatever Coran told you all,” Pidge finger detangled her hair as it air dried, knowing she should brush properly so it didn’t get all frizzy and curl up, but she couldn’t find it in her to care. Growing out her hair had and still made her happy, but now that she had it back, part of her was missing the ease of having short hair. Less maintenance, less washing time, less product, less everything. She’d gotten used to just rolling out of bed and not having to do much to style it in the mornings. “You guys have been discussing things with King Qylt all day, right? Anyone contacted the king yet?”

“Not yet, no.” Allura’s chipper expression dampened a bit and her brows furrowed. “Shiro thinks we should use the king more proactively by having _him_ contact the Galran commander to speed up the process, but as I’m sure you can imagine, King Qylt is a huge coward. He’s refused any plans that put him too fully in the middle of the line of fire, so to speak.”

“Urgh, what a turd.” Pidge muttered in disdain under her breath as the girls turned another corner. “Remind me again why it was necessary to keep him here in the castle?”

Allura giggled quietly. “You seem quite irritated. Did I disturb your peace?”

“Nah, there’s just too much testosterone from these bullheaded guys on this damn ship, and I’m sick of it.”

Allura frowned a little in confusion. “Testosterone?”

“The main human male hormone.” Pidge gestured with her hand vaguely as she gave the abbreviated definition. “Makes them all, you know, _stupidly_ _male_.”

“Oh! I understand!”

_I suppose she means what helps their balls drop?_

Pidge snapped her wide-eyed gaze at the princess, though Allura was affectionately rubbing Platt’s head and completely missed the look. Had she really just heard Allura think that? Who the fuck had taught her that phrase? Jesus. These guys were just wrong for corrupting the princess with dirty phrases.

“Did you come from a bubble bath, Pidge? Are they not just _divine_?!”

Pidge nodded, stifling a small yawn. “Yeah, I needed to think about some things. I’m going to chill in my room the rest of the evening though. What are you up to?”

“King Qylt won’t stop seeking me out and… trying to _woo_ me.” Allura said in disgust, blushing in slight embarrassment and the smallest mouse patted her cheek with its paw. The pink mouse pretended to be King Qylt with total heart eyes. “I protected him from getting blasted by a sentry and now he won’t leave me alone. He proposed marriage in the middle of the meeting. I thought Shiro was seriously going to launch him into outer space. Heck, _I_ wanted to.”

Pidge scoffed incredulously. “Wow, no kidding. You save a guy once and now he thinks you should be wed…”

“I turned him down promptly, of course.”

“Not interested in bird-humans?” Pidge joked as they punched in the code for the residential wing.

“Well… he clearly lost his balls somewhere along the way, yes?” Allura waggled her eyebrows up and down a couple times in a way oddly reminiscent of Lance. “How is the marriage going to be enjoyable if there’s nothing to look forward to?”

It took Pidge a few ticks to realise what she’d meant, but once it sunk in, Pidge just about died laughing, doubling over and holding her abdomen.

“I can’t believe you just said that!” she said as she gasped for breath. “Where are you getting this stuff from?”

Allura beamed, looking quite pleased with herself. “I’ve been practicing Terran slang with Lance! I’d like to be able to understand human jokes one day.”

Well that explained why Allura knew some pretty dirty things now.

“You’re definitely making progress.” Pidge cleared her throat, still cackling a bit at the unexpected filthy comment.  “But wow, marriage huh? That’s a huge jump.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time… I’m one of the last living Alteans, and a princess and heiress no less. A huge status symbol if I were to become someone’s queen.”

“Does that happen a lot during diplomatic meetings?” Pidge’s brows furrowed, her humour slipping the slightest bit. Dealing with something like that often was bound to be exhausting. She didn’t know Allura had stuff like that going on in her life. She supposed it was because she was never the person who went to negotiations.

“Not often enough to be a true nuisance, but still happens frequently enough.”

“How do you deal with it?”

She sighed, rubbing a bracelet on her wrist. “Diplomacy. I wish I could just punch them though. I’m trying to work and all they want is to get under my dress. Or… in my pants?”

“Yeah, the phrase is in my pants.”

“I always have found that one weird. I’m not wearing pants so how does that phrase make any sense?” Allura asked seriously and Pidge snorted at her overanalysing the figure of speech. “I envy your freedom at times, Pidge. You’re not bound by any princess restrictions and can kick as much butt as you want. Yesterday’s interrogation being a prime example. It was kind of scary to see you like that, but I was fascinated by your disregard of propriety. You were resplendent.”

Pidge felt her cheeks heat a bit at the odd praise. “You are right about that, but I still can’t do anything crazy because it’d reflect bad on all the paladins which would reflect badly on Voltron and our coalition and alliance.”

“I suppose you do have a point.”

“So have you ever been interested in getting married at all?” Allura was roughly marrying age and from what Pidge knew about princesses, they tended to have to get married to carry on the throne. And come to think of it, Allura had never really mentioned any relationships or anything prior to her cryosleep. Maybe she’d been courting someone.

“I didn’t really get that chance to grow up as other princesses did. By the time I had reached courting age, war had begun and I was more concerned about my father and protecting Altea than boys.” She sounded a little distant, and Pidge knew the princess was thinking about her dearly departed father. Then Allura blinked with a sigh and gave Pidge a shy little smile. “Although, I _did_ have a childhood friend who joined the knight’s watch. He was very dashing, but I knew we would never be more than friends. I cared for him quite a bit. I believe I smashed him?”

Pidge choked out a laugh. “ _Crush_. You had a crush on him. Smashed means bam-bam in the ham.”

Allura’s face scrunched up cutely in absolute bewilderment. “I’m not understanding.”

“Boinking, Allura.”

 _That_ she got. Her face went up in flames. “O-oh. My mistake. I guess I still have some studying to do.”

One of the mice squeaked in her ear and Allura nodded, stooping down to let it climb down her arm. Once on the ground it ran off and then Pidge and Allura continued on their way down the corridors.

“What about you, Pidge? Anyone you’re interested in in our group? Surely you must have noticed that they are all growing into very attractive, gallant men?” Allura said excitedly, giggling a little girlishly and Pidge was yet again reminded that she was still fairly young. She must have missed out on having fun with female friends because Pidge could see that her thoughts were largely excited that she could have girl talk with someone for once. “If I were several thousand deca-phoeb’s younger, I might consider.”

It was a joke, and Pidge knew she just wanted to gossip and have girl talk, but Pidge wasn’t sure about telling Allura about her feelings for Lance. She didn’t think Allura would exploit that or anything, and it wasn’t like Pidge was mad at her. (Well, kind of). Pidge _wasn’t_ a saint; she couldn’t help the slight resentment she had, but even so Lance liked Allura. It could make things awkward because Pidge was sure the princess _knew_ he had those feelings.

“Dating within our group is a bad idea, and I’ve already determined none of them as a potential partner.” she partially lied. The only ones she’d even consider seriously were Lance and Hunk. Keith had a permanent hard-on for Shiro, and Shiro wasn’t an option since he batted for the other team. And even then, she was pretty sure Hunk was halfway in love with Shay, and even though she had feelings for Lance, he was all about Allura. There were _no_ pickings. “Any screw ups in the relationships will mess up the bond.”

Not that it mattered since she and Lance were so beyond fucked at this point it would take a miracle to repair the damage they’d done.

Allura’s brows shot up. “Really?”

_I thought she was dating Keith._

Pidge stopped dead in her tracks and spun to face the princess. Allura jumped a bit, looking briefly startled.

“ _What_?!” Pidge screeched.

Why would she _ever_ think Pidge was dating Keith?!

 “P-Pidge?” Allura was wondering why she had reacted so strongly to her comment.

She hastened to find some way to bring it up organically in conversation. “Uh, wh-why do you sound so surprised? Do you think I’m dating someone?”

It was a very abrupt and way too obvious way to ask Allura and only fuelled her suspicions—her sudden sly look was definitely indication—but Pidge was past the point of trying to finesse answers with subtlety. She needed answers _now_.

“Well, to be honest,” Allura got closer conspiratorially, looking like she’d been dying to share a secret for forever and a day, “I thought you were dating Keith! Are you?”

Pidge exhaled very slowly. “Where did you even get that idea from?”

“I heard it from the mice! Lance apparently told them he thinks you have a thing for Keith, and they told me, and I’ve been _dying_ to ask you!”

Pidge felt her eye twitch. Fucking Lance. Of course this was his fault. This misunderstanding _reeked_ of him.

“So are you two an item? I promise I can keep a secret!”

_I’ve always wanted to gossip with a female friend!_

“Allura, I don’t have a crush on Keith,” Pidge said slowly, counting down from ten in her mind to keep her anger from crawling into her voice. She really wanted to go find Lance and give him a piece of her mind now. What the hell was he doing telling the mice something extreme like that without any evidence or facts when he _knew_ the mice had the loosest lips of anyone in the entire castle, and they weren’t even human! No secrets were safe around them. “And we’re definitely _not_ dating. Keith has someone else he’s interested in.”

She leaned even closer, her eyes literally sparkling in excitement. “ _Who_?”

“I meant, _probably_ has someone else he’s interested in. Maybe. I don’t know; I’m just speculating,” Pidge quickly said, realising her near mistake. “My point is that me and Keith are never going to happen because we don’t see each other like that!”

Allura looked a little disappointed that there was no new exciting juicy gossip, and Pidge made a mental note to somehow introduce the princess to those telenovelas Pidge watched with Lance once. Allura had way too much time on her hands and needed something spicy to occupy her time since she was desperate to gossip. That would never be a good thing.

The pink mouse returned with excited squeaking, and Allura stooped to pick it up again. It chattered to her, pantomiming a beak with its hands and explaining something that had Allura’s expression darkening.

“Urgh. I’m sorry to cut our talk off early, but I’m going to take off. King Qylt is apparently looking for me again. I’m going to go see if Hunk can make some sort of tracker so I can always know where the king is at all times.” She held up the ends of her dress and started on her way with an apologetic look at Pidge. “I’ll see you later, Pidge. We should definitely continue our talk the next time we’re free!”

Pidge waved half-heartedly, brows furrowed and bothered by Lance’s stupid belief that she had a crush on Keith. They liked to call her oblivious, but Pidge was 100% certain that Lance was _clueless_. When had she ever acted like she had any sort of feelings for Keith? It was just insane. Sure, it wasn’t like Pidge made it obvious she liked Lance either, but if Keith and Hunk had managed to figure it out without her saying anything—although she suspected those two idiots had read her journal at some point—why couldn’t Lance see her feelings?

Not to mention it didn’t make any sense why he thought she liked Keith. Was that the reason why he was mad? Was he pissed off because he thought she hadn’t told him some secret? That didn’t seem right, but she was too tired to try to think about what the reasoning could be.

Something definitely wasn’t adding up.

She groaned, pressing her fingers against her temple in irritation as she felt the beginnings of a headache. Fuck staying in her room for the night, she needed to _escape_. Nowhere specific, she just needed to be away from everyone and this castle and everything. She’d just put her armour on real quick and sneak out with Green. She’d be back by morning before Shiro even realised she’d left in the first place.

When she rounded the corner to her room door, Keith was leaning by the wall outside of her door in his Marmora uniform with his arms crossed and eyes closed. Pidge caught the tail end of a dirty daydream involving Shiro sucking Keith’s stringy cum off of his fingers, but it thankfully— _seriously thank God_ —disappeared as she approached him.

“What do you want?” she asked a little crossly, annoyed that her sneaking away plans had gotten foiled by his untimely appearance.

Keith rose a brow, but otherwise didn’t budge or open his eyes. “I promised you a spar, didn’t I?”

“I just showered. No point in getting gross again.”

“And your alternative is what? Wallowing?” This time, he did open his eyes and he gave her an unimpressed look. “You’re in your own head way too much. You need to be active right now.”

“No offence, Keith, but I really don’t feel like it.” She had to get out. She felt suffocated, and her nauseous feeling wouldn’t go away.

Contrary to her wishes, Keith smirked obnoxiously as he pushed off the wall. “Knew you would chicken out. Scared to lose?”

She knew he was literally just goading her to try to get her to acquiesce to the sparring, but she really didn’t like being called weak or chicken or mocked about her fears. If there was one thing that could get her on board with anything, it was appealing to that part of her that always had something to prove to everyone. Maybe it was because she was the smallest. Maybe it was because she was the youngest. Maybe it was because she was born into a family of literal geniuses and needed to find her place with them. Maybe it was because she’d skipped two grades and had always felt like if she didn’t show that she earned her place on her own merit, the students would always think she got to where she was only because her father was one of the most high profile engineers on Earth.

Either way, Keith definitely knew—probably because his school experience had the same tones as hers of needing to prove himself—and had exploited that.

“Fine.” She growled through grit teeth as she punched in her room’s code in the panel by the door. “I’m getting dressed, and then I am so kicking your ass.”

She quickly tossed on the only sports bra and sweatpants she found not buried under the giant pile of clothes beside her bed. They smelled a little like BO that had festered in its own stink for a couple quintants, but she doubted anything else she found in the pile would be any better. She speed dried her hair by ruffling it with her towel and ultimately pulled it up in a ponytail to control the remaining dripping to one focal point. When she walked back out of her room, ready to kick skinny little half-Galran bootie, he waved an energy bar in her face. It was one of the special multinutrient Blade of Marmora bars that members used for sustenance on long missions when food was scarce. She was pretty sure they were made of some alien creature’s offal or something because Keith had refused to divulge what made up the food when she’d asked once.

She took it with a frown. “Why’d you give me this?”

“You skipped dinner, right?” he said by way of explanation.

“Wow, yeah, thanks a bunch.” She ripped the packaging gratefully and took a huge chunk as they began to head towards the gym in the castle. It tasted like ass, but she _hadn’t_ eaten dinner and as she’d been changing, small pangs of hunger had started to make themselves known. “But I’m not going easy on you just because you’re a lifesaver.”

“Actually, I wasn’t at dinner either. Lance is the one who told me you probably wouldn’t go get something to eat tonight. He knows you really well,” he said as they headed down the hallway towards the gym. “Considering how often you’ve probably been in his room barely clothed, he probably _knows_ you really well too, huh?”

She swallowed her huge mouthful a little too quickly, and coughed a bit when her body fought the rough treatment. Keith was half convinced that their game nights were a cover for sexy time and that she’d given him blue balls and that was why they were fighting.

“You’re not funny.” Pidge croaked, whacking at her chest a bit and failing to fight off her blush.

“But seriously. You should thank him for looking out for you,” Keith continued, ignoring her obvious discomfort and keeping his chill pace. “Even if you’re currently fighting, he’s still going out of his way to look out for you. Yesterday when I told him you ran off to central command he didn’t even hesitate to run after you.”

Pidge stared at the energy bar, dejected, her appetite suddenly decreased. Guilt wracked her brain. He’d gotten hurt helping her, and she’d yet to check up on him.

“Is he better? How’s his arm?”

“Why don’t you go find him and ask him that yourself?”

“Because we’re not talking. Besides, if he was so concerned about me not eating too, he could have come and brought me something himself.”

Keith gave her a look that made her feel like she was a petulant child or something. “He said something about you probably being happier getting my help.”

Probably because this idiot thought she had a crush on Keith.

“Sooner or later you both will have to address what’s going on between you two,” Keith said a bit ominously. “This whole he-said, she-said back and forth is getting on all of our nerves.”

She didn’t really dwell long enough on trying to interpret his odd tone. “Then butt out. My relationship with Lance is my busi—”

“Can’t do that anymore.” Keith scrutinised her with a wry expression. “So deal with it and end the fight, or one way or another, we will.”

Pidge narrowed her eyes at him, starting to get a little irritated with his abrasive attitude. “It’s not that easy.”

“Sure it is,” Keith yawned, checking the watch on his arm to see the time. “It’s as simple as taking the first step and going to him. Doesn’t matter who started it. What matters is that it gets ended. We’re on the cusp of a pretty big fight. Having this shit weighing on your minds is dangerous.”

“Look Keith. I’m sparring with you because you might be right about the wallowing, but if you’re going to run your mouth the whole time about my Lance Situation, I’m going back to my room.” Pidge snapped at him, crumpling up the wrapper of the energy bar and shoving it in his fanny pack before he could react. “I’m going to deal with it. But in my own time, okay?”

Keith’s jaw was clenched and he didn’t look satisfied, but he didn’t continue to argue with her. “Alright. I get it.”

The odd tone made her suspicious about what exactly he _got_ , but she decided not to pursue the small tiff. If Keith wanted to annoy her with his cryptic bullshit, that was fine. She would put her energy in sparring him and kick his ass.

 

…

 

Or she would have liked to.

Whoever made this weapon in her head seriously needed to get the biggest ass whooping of their life because she was certain this thing was _defective_.

Pidge had figured that with her ability, she might be able to see Keith’s moves before he attacked her which she fully intended to take advantage of in order to beat him in a spar.

(Something she had yet to do in all these years).

And yet. _Nothing_.

The few times she’d peeked into his head, Keith _still_ wasn’t telegraphing his attacks even in his mind. He was reacting a split second only after _she_ attacked him and it pissed her off. His training with the Blade was way too good. The best she’d managed to do was force him into defensive manoeuvres once or twice, and of course there were those two freebie shots he’d given her, but it didn’t matter when he’d knocked her flat on her back more than once. And as if that wasn’t bad (and humiliating!) enough, he’d spent half their fight thinking of the apparent suppleness of Shiro’s sweet ass and how much he’d love to spread his cheeks and spear him with his cock.

Goddamn _Keith_. He pissed her off so much.

She’d barely managed to make him work up a sweat, and he hadn’t even been paying attention to her in full. It was frustrating. Pidge was by no means a bad fighter and she was strong in her own right, especially considering how small she was, but everyone could throw her around like a rag doll and it made her feel so incompetent.

The last time she’d sparred against Shiro with Lance, he’d _actually_ picked her up and hurled her at their leader to distract him. It hadn’t worked, and instead, Shiro had caught her and used her momentum to throw her back. The goose egg on her and Lance’s heads from the disastrous collision had lasted an entire movement. She’d kicked them in their shins good and hard to make it clear she did not appreciate their impromptu game of catch at _her_ expense.

“Round fifteen? Score is 14-0.” Keith asked, staring down at her with the ghost of a smug smirk on his lips. The jackass wasn’t even breathing that hard. “Or have you finally realised you’re no match for me?”

“I’m gonna… get up and then… I’m gonna kick you… in the nads,” Pidge growled from the floor between her heavy pants, an arm thrown over her eyes as she struggled to catch her breath. Her abs and legs hurt from all the effort she’d been exerting, and she knew she was going to be sore by the next day.

“That’s not very sportsman like conduct,” Keith responded dryly, reaching down and taking hold of her free arm before yanking her up.

Pidge groaned when her body protested the movement but rushed to scramble to her feet before he pulled her arm out of its socket. Her energy reserves were nearly at zero, and Keith seemed like he had some to spare.

“Your Galra physiology gives you an advantage,” she grumbled, stooping with her hands on her knees. “You suck, Keith. You didn’t have to go all out!”

Keith laughed and tossed her a water bottle. “You’d have been insulted if I went easy on you even the slightest. Besides, you were definitely aiming kicks at my groin the last few rounds. If I eased up even a little bit, you would have—”

“Made it impossible for you to beat your meat?” She rose a playful brow, wiping her forehead of the sweat plastering her bangs to her skin.

He looked like he was trying not to smile. “You weren’t fighting fair. Therefore, I wasn’t going to reward your bad behaviour by handicapping myself.”

Pidge stuck her tongue out at him and uncapped the water bottle, chugging down more than half in one go and almost instantly feeling like she wasn’t about to die anymore. Keith also drank from his own bottle, but his mind was elsewhere.

 _Should I ask her about Plox? She seems to be in a better mood_.

Crap. She’d forgotten he knew about the mix-up. It would be best if she directed his train of thought in a safe zone before he started to make inferences too close to her current situation.

“Keith, uh, I wanted to clarify some stuff about the Plox thing.”

His head snapped to her in surprise. “…Yeah. You should. Because we found Plox, and that’s definitely not what you brought back to the castle.”

“I thought I found Plox, but the truth is…” She frowned, feeling like maybe it was time to come clean. “I’m pretty sure I broke the weapon the Galra wanted Qiolea to make. I was trying to get more info about it because I didn’t in my first search since I didn’t know what it was. But the computer got exploded by one of the dumb sentries.”

“You don’t think it’s dangerous, do you?” Keith questioned a little urgently. “You made direct contact with it and King Qylt did say it was designed to enhance abilities, right?”

“Yeah, _Galra_ abilities. It had no effects on me, as you can clearly see since I just lost fourteen nil,” Pidge responded instead, inflicting just the right amount of sass in her voice to sound unaffected. She knew it had been sufficient because the wrinkles in Keith’s brows smoothed out.

Keith checked an alert in his watch, skimming whatever message he’d received with a certain level of disinterest on his face. “Do the others know that Plox and the Galra nanotech you broke aren’t the same?”

“Not yet, but I feel like the tighter a secret I keep it, the less risks we take in the Galra somehow learning that their weapon isn’t there. We need them to come under the pretence of their weapon being there. And if most of us believe that it is, it’ll be more convincing to the Galra that we aren’t just setting up a trap, if that makes sense.”

“It does. Galra are notoriously suspicious, and we can’t assume these militia don’t already have heightened perception or something.” Keith nodded slowly, agreeing with her about the benefits of secrecy. But he still looked a bit worried. “But what if they can track the tech to our ship or something?”

“Then we protect the lab. We have the only remaining parts of the weapon, even if we dissolved it in liquid. They could reconstruct it if they get their hands on it.”

But actually, Keith brought up a good point. If they _could_ track it, she’d probably be the one in danger since she was housing it in her body. She hadn’t really thought of that.

“I’ll keep it a secret for now too. We do have tons of people on this team who can’t keep secrets. And some of them can’t act or pretend for shit either,” Keith finally responded after pondering what she’d told him. He typed a response on his watch and then turned to her with a stern look. “But if shit really hits the fan or if our castle gets attacked, I’m telling Shiro.”

“That’s fair.” Pidge finished off the rest of her bottle and then wiped her mouth. “So should we continue sparring or…?”

She did feel a little better letting Keith know about what the deal was with Plox. He’d reacted much better than she expected and he was being reasonable about hiding it from the others. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to tell him about the mind reading?

Keith didn’t get a chance to respond because the gym doors slid open with a whirr and Hunk waltzed in, searching the room until his eyes settled on the two of them on the sparring mats in the middle of the floor. He briefly made eye contact with Keith before he grinned at Pidge, something a little _too_ large and slightly creepy.

“There you are!” Hunk said, very chipper as he headed over to them. He took her hand and held it up, wiggling one of her fingers. “Pidge I need your help with some sweets I’m trying to make. I can’t get them out of the mould. They require nimble little fingers and you’ve got small-ish hands. Can you help me for a bit?”

“Umm, I guess? Keith, you good with waiting a bit?” She turned to ask Keith, and was rewarded with a shrug.

“Take your time.”

Maybe Pidge was getting more attuned to Keith from reading his occasional thoughts or maybe spending more time hanging out with him had helped her to learn how to pick apart some of his expressions, but there was just something _not right_ about his response. Neither his expression nor tone was completely neutral, but rather tinted with something almost… conniving. There were small hints of pride in his mind as well.

Before she could even try to analyse his behaviour though, Hunk near dragged her out of the gym, chattering all the while about how she had the perfect little baker’s hands and how his hands were just too large to be able to handle some of the intricacies of decorating in baking. He only ever really spoke in that rambling way when he was nervous. Pidge only half-listened and uh-huh’ed a couple times, wondering why Hunk’s mind was full of anxious and partially excited and partially terrified and partially conspiratorial energy.

“Can I at least grab a shirt or something, Hunk? It’s cold in the castle!” Goosebumps were already rising up on her body in response to the air conditioning nipping at her skin. Pidge tried to tug herself out of Hunk’s grasp, but he had a near death grip on her wrist.

“No time! I need your help right now!”

Pidge’s eyes narrowed.

Something really was not right.

And she got her answer when they entered the kitchen, there was no sign of any baking occurring, oh and _Lance_ was standing boredly by the countertop, wearing his damp swim trunks, hair still a little wet.

“Honestly, Hunk,” Lance growled, turning around to face them when their footsteps alerted him to their presence. “Was this really so important that you had to yank me out of the pool for—”

He stopped talking abruptly, his gaze landing on her and expression taking on a look of minor shock that Pidge was certain was mirrored on her own face. She felt her face flush almost involuntarily when he registered what she was wearing. Behind her, Hunk made a small satisfied sound under his breath. And shortly after, came:

_Good. They’re in the same room now._

And everything suddenly made perfect sense.

“Okay, _hell_ no!” Pidge spun on her heel to leave only for Hunk to step in her way and block her path. He straightened to his full height, arms folded in front of his chest imposingly. And considering his height and girth, it _was_ intimidating, no matter how gentle she knew he was. “Hunk, let me out.”

“I’m not letting either of you out of here until you make up!”

Behind her, Lance let out a low, annoyed groan. “I fucking _knew_ something was up. You have never once asked for my help when baking.”

“Hunk, I’m serious!” Pidge said, her heart racing in her chest. She was definitely not ready to talk to Lance and not alone. She hadn’t prepared any of what she was going to say. “Stop butting in!”

“Nuh uh.” Hunk shook his head, not budging one inch. Pidge briefly wondered if it was kamikaze to try to shove him out of the way somehow. “Keith and I decided this is far enough. Some dangerous Galra could be on their way for a battle right now. If you don’t shape up, we’ll all be in danger.”

“You both are such traitors!”

“Maybe so, but we’re traitors who are working to fix your relationship since you two knuckleheads clearly won’t.”

With those final words, Hunk walked out the door and she heard the thunk of the lock code being set in place. Pidge huffed out her angry breath, staring at the door almost helplessly. _Fuck_. Why hadn’t she seen this coming? She glanced over her shoulder. Lance was watching her calmly, though from his expression, she could clearly see he was just as irritated.

“I don’t suppose you know the passcode to the kitchen.”

“We wouldn’t still be here if I did,” Lance pointed out, leaning back against the kitchen counter with a sigh. “Great… he couldn’t think to get me a bathrobe or towel or something? I’m freezing my nads off here.”

Pidge folded her lips in a bit, trying to refrain from laughing because honestly, his hair was still kind of wet and some parts were sticking up in places.

She rubbed at her own bare arms as she turned to face him. “Same. I asked him if I could grab a top, and he wouldn’t let me.”

“Yeah. You do look cold,” he said, gesturing absentmindedly to her current clothing.

A neutral statement, but Pidge was aware that he was quite a bit conscious to the fact that she wasn’t wearing a shirt. To be fair, she was too.

“I should have just run under his legs and escaped or something! I’m quick and I’m sure I’m small enough that it could have worked.”

Lance let out a small laugh. “Unless he sat on you. It’s happened before.”

“Oh shit! How could I forget?”

They’d been fighting some low level threats on a planet once and Pidge had tried to run after an enemy behind Hunk in a tight corridor. She’d made an attempt to squeeze through the space between his legs only for him to get surprised, lose his balance, and land right on her. Nobody had been there when it happened, but she’d told Lance about it later when they hung out.

“Hey, if I got a mouthful of Hunk’s ass in my face, I’d probably repress the memory too…” He yawned, resting his hands behind his head.

“Really? I would have thought you would enjoy someone sitting on your face,” Pidge joked absentmindedly, for a tick forgetting that they were fighting since their conversation was coming along more easily than she’d expected.

“…Not Hunk.” His dark eyes never left hers.

Heat spread through her body immediately, and she swallowed very audibly. Pidge couldn’t glean whether he was adding to the joke or not because his tone had been borderline unreadable. There was a hint of _something_ in there, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to dissect it. She was almost scared to know what could possibly be passing through his mind at the moment.

“How long are they going to keep us in here?” Pidge muttered, breaking eye contact and walking to the ovens. Maybe she could turn them on and leave the doors open so that at the very least, the oven heat could warm up the room. “Can’t believe they teamed up to make sure we would be caught off guard. I was wondering why Keith even wanted to spar that late.”

“Oh, so you have been with Keith all night.” Lance scoffed with a roll of his eyes.

_Why am I not surprised?_

And just like that, any good vibes that had been amassed in their once chill conversation came crashing down. She should have _known_ that Lance couldn’t keep his bullshit from screwing up their talk.

“Yeah, so? At least he wants to hang out with me. _You_ sent him to me to get me to eat something, Lance,” Pidge spat, glowering at him. Somewhere in his eyes was a bit of surprise that she knew, but he masked it well. “You could have easily done it yourself if you weren’t being such a tool and then maybe we might have been the ones hanging out instead.”

“Nah.” Lance’s smile looked misplaced on his face, especially considering his eyes were hard, the sapphire blue like steel. “You probably would have fucked off to go be with Keith anyway, so I saved myself the trouble.”

Pidge’s mouth turned down, her frustration mounting, and overtaken by the sting of hurt from Lance’s harshness.

“Okay. That’s it. I was going to try to be civil, I was going to try to have a real conversation, hell, I was geared up to _apologise_ for hurting your feelings, Lance, but I’m so tired of this!” Pidge’s voice cracked a bit, her throat tightening with emotion. She shoved a hand under her bangs in frustration, wiping off some more sweat. She was so damn sick of this and it was beating her down emotionally and mentally and she just wanted everything to be the way it once was when Lance was her best friend and she would never hesitate to tell him everything in her heart. “What is your problem with Keith?! You’ve been making all these dumb assumptions to the point that even Allura got misled from whatever bullshit you’ve been spouting! Do me a favour and keep my name and Keith’s out of your fucking pillow talk with the mice!”

Lance was looking at her like _she_ was the crazy one. “What the hell are you talking about? My problem isn’t with Keith. My problem is with you!”

 _You **with** Keith_.

She narrowed her eyes. His thoughts were betraying his very obvious false statement. “You are a big fat _liar_.”

“Takes one to know one,” he hissed back, standing up from his perch.

“Okay, you know what? I’m sorry, okay?!” She threw her hands up. “I’m sorry I decided to work in the lab all night with him to get work done! But you want the truth? I didn’t want to hang out with you anymore that night!”

Because he’d scared her.

“Keith just happened to be there when I tried to take a breather, and he had a calming effect on me at the time, so I chilled with him for a while. I didn’t set out to purposely avoid you by going to Keith! That’s just the way things happened.”

“…Why did you not want to hang anymore?” he asked in a choked voice, as if she’d just run him over with a truck and the breath had gotten knocked out of him. She tried hard not to register the fact that the broken expression on his face resembled that of a kid told Christmas would be cancelled.

“Why does it matter? Just take what I said at face value and stop fucking pushing, Lance!”

“It does matter!”

What would it take for him to drop it?

“ _No_ , it doesn’t!”

“You may not give a shit about me, but _this_ matters to me, okay?! I just need to know!”

“ _Why_?!”

“Because I waited for you, Pidge! I waited up all night hoping that my supposed best friend would come back after she said she was going to and then she never did!” he yelled heatedly, so loudly that Pidge lost her train of thought over the emotion in his voice. The words spilled out of him like a waterfall, echoing violently in the room like he’d had them bottled up so deep and couldn’t stop the torrent of his pain any longer. “Hangout nights are our thing! The first time you ever told me about how people treated you at school, the first time you told me your real name, the first time you let yourself cry in front of anyone, the first times you ever opened up to me for real! They’re moments I will never forget because they’re moments that made me realise that I could have one of the realest relationships in my life. With _you_!”

Her brows lifted, but she was speechless. “Lance…”

“I thought they mattered to you too because I thought they were an unspoken promise between us to shuck away all the paladin bullshit to just be Katie and Lance. We have to be brave and act perfect and be strong in front of the universe every day, but when I hang out with you, when we were together, we got to let it all go and just be ourselves! I thought that was important to you too, but you shat all over it by ditching me to hang out with _Keith_ all night on one of _our_ nights, except you lied to me about it and gave me some bullshit excuse!”

He let out a shuddering breath, running a hand through his hair and looking off to the side like it still physically pained him to even think about it. Pidge could feel the violent, turbulent waves of anguish he was feeling and she grew nauseous, feeling utterly disgusted with herself. This went beyond simple feelings being hurt and she hadn’t even realised.

“The worst part was I _knew_ deep down you weren’t telling me the truth, but I didn’t push because I thought whatever it was that had you freaking out had to be so private and so important that you couldn’t even tell _me_. So I was going to give you time to think things through on your own and hoped that you would care enough about me to actually tell me what happened! But instead I find out you hated hanging out with me so much you ran off to Keith and decided you trust him more than me when you used to come to me for everything!”

_You literally shattered my heart into pieces and you can’t even be bothered to care!_

“I don’t hate hanging out with you, and I didn’t just _ditch_ you, okay? I was dealing with something that _was_ important, and I couldn’t stay,” she tried to explain, clenching the fabric of her sweatpants in her fists.

“What was so important that you couldn’t spend one more second with me, then? Because as far as I’m concerned, we were having a great time until then, and then you ran like I was the plague. Was it me?! What did I do wrong?”

She frowned, her voice shaking. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Just tell me, Pidge!”

“ _No_!”

Lance’s nostrils flared, anger flashing through his eyes at her dismissal. Then he chuckled humourlessly, a cruel little laugh that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“Tch… Go figure.” He spat with a level of caustic sarcasm that Pidge would never equate with him. Keith absolutely, Shiro maybe, when pushed too far, but Lance sounded cruel and aggravated and it made her really mad. “I’m just convenient when it suits your needs, right?”

Her gaze shot up and she narrowed her eyes at his sharp tone. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

_It means that I’m tired of being strung along!_

Instead, he shifted so he was facing her directly and said with a sneer. “You’ve shared pretty much everything with me, even stuff about your periods! But all of a sudden, _this_ is too important to tell me? What’s your excuse now for going to Keith that night instead of just talking to me about whatever issue you had with me? Another ‘he’s my friend too, Lance’? Or wait, maybe a ‘I trust Keith too, Lance’?”

The weird falsetto tone and mockery of her voice made her indignant. Whatever true points he had definitely made about her being sneaky and lying to him, she didn’t feel like acknowledging whatsoever anymore because he was being extremely rude. She drew the line at him mocking her.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?! I said I didn’t have an issue with you like that! I also said I can’t tell you so you need to drop it _now_!” She shouted, stomping over to him and slapping a hand angrily on the island counter. “And what is with your obsession with me and Keith?! We _are_ friends! Good friends! Do you really have a problem with that? You can’t hog me, Lance. I’m not a toy and that’s not the way friendship works!”

“That’s a fucking lie and you know it!” His eyes flared furiously as he stepped right into her space. Pidge held her ground, giving him a defiant icy stare and refusing to back off. “I’ve been noticing this for a while now, Pidge. You gravitate to him now when you have a problem, you stare at him all the time, you make excuses to leave the group only to miraculously end up around him! You’re even starting to pick up his mannerisms!”

Her getting aggressive with the king popped up at the forefront of his mind as well as some other instances of her purposely isolating herself to think or spending time in Keith’s company. Put that way, it made some sense, but she could make a very strong case that she was picking up a lot of mannerisms from _Lance_ too. Even Hunk. In fact, it was only natural that they all were picking up habits from each other because they’d lived with each other for so long.

But something about his insinuations made her wrinkle her nose incredulously.

“ _What_?! That is no different than how I am with you and Hunk! And you’re one to talk when Allura is _literally_ using slang she learned from you in every day conversation and waggling her eyebrows and shit.”

“This isn’t about Allura! This is about you and Keith!”

“Do you even hear yourself talk? We are literally describing the same situation, yet you’re the only one who’s getting so worked up over it!”

“We are _not_ talking about the same thing!”

“ _Yes_ _we are_!”

“ _No_ , we’re not! It’s different,” he asserted, and the lack of explanation made Pidge’s anger implode. She’d had enough. “Why don’t you just admit the truth already and stop leading me on?!”

“Admit what truth?! What the fuck do you even mean leading you on?! What the hell are you even talking—”

“Oh yeah, play up the ignorance as usual.” He scoffed through grit teeth, narrowing his eyes in utter chagrin. “This is just like you to pretend I’m clueless when you obviously have been sending mixed signals—”

“You are _literally_ the most enormous, annoying, ridiculous, clueless, fucking moron I have ever met, Lance!” Pidge yelled as she shoved him hard, her temper out full force. He barely took a step back, and it made her furious. “I’m done with this conversation! I’ve had it up to here with you!”

“I’ve had it with you too!”

Her heart was pounding so painfully in her chest she thought she was about to keel over and die. “Well good riddance then, right?! Because I’m sick of having to appease your petulance for no damn reason!”

She shoved him again and irritation glinted sharply in his gaze.

“I’m fed up with you getting pissy about everything having to do with Keith!”

Another shove and Lance looked completely done, something fiery lighting up in his eyes as he snatched her wrists in his grip and forced her still.

“I’m tired of fighting! And I’m tired of having to deal with your constant irritating, immature, imbecilic, motherfucking attitude! I’m sick of the heartache, Lance! If you don’t stop badgering me about this shit, I swear to God, _I’m giving up on us for good_!”

They fell abruptly silent, breathing hard, her face tilted up, his down, and their noses almost touching as they glared at each other. Her words hung heavy in the air, silencing the argument because they both knew damn well it was an empty threat. Pidge would never be able to fully extricate herself from the hold Lance had on her heart. He was her first and best friend; she needed him, even when he annoyed the crap out of her. And from the sceptical look in his eyes, she knew he wasn’t buying it either.

“If you really mean that, I’ll walk out of your life right now and won’t look back. So… care to repeat that, Katie?” he dared her in a low voice.

She couldn’t.

Pidge wondered if Lance could feel her pulse skyrocketing under her skin. At the moment, he wasn’t so much looking at her as staring at her mouth, and then he met her gaze and she _knew_ she wasn’t imagining the heat in his eyes. Darkened gazes locked on each other in a silent message too loaded to simply disregard, and Pidge’s heart rate picked up immeasurably. A sudden unexplained flare of arousal coursed through her mind and settled in her veins.

The only sort of answer she got was a fleeting thought in Lance’s mind. A very brief image of her propped up on his hips, face flushed, head tilted back euphorically and mouth partially open in a silent scream.

An urge to feel his lips on hers surfaced with such intensity she couldn’t dismiss it.

All common sense flew out of her mind.

Pidge surged on her tip toes, ignoring his brief look of surprise and crushing her mouth on his. She came at him a little too fast and bumped her nose against his and slightly caught his bottom lip with her tooth, but that wasn’t a deterrent. If anyone asked, Pidge wouldn’t be able to explain what the hell she was doing, because the only thing she’d been thinking was the sudden rush of attraction she’d felt.

Lance stiffened for all of two ticks before something in him snapped. He leaned down and deepened it further, tongue dancing against hers in a pervasive, delicious kiss that had her mind spinning. He let go of her wrists and grasped her waist to pull her flush against him, the press of her skin against his making goosebumps rise on her arms. The kiss grew very heated, very fast. Pidge slid her hands up his chest and around his shoulders, hauling him down further to her level and tilting her head to take in more and more of him.

There was a part of Pidge that could not believe this was happening. The other part of her was growing lost in the building sensation of fire rushing through her body.

It was a couple more ticks when a low groan sounded from the back of Lance’s throat that made electricity shoot straight down her back and pool in her abdomen. She went a little weak kneed and stumbled backwards, dragging him with her. He gladly followed her, his lips never leaving hers. She hit the counter and she felt Lance drag an arm around her back to steady her. One of his hands tugged her ponytail free from its confines to let her hair tumble around her shoulders as he clawed his hand in the loose waves.

The kiss was neither slow nor soft and innocent; it was driven solely by their intense desire to satiate their lust. Neither cared about how they were throwing a monkey wrench at their relationship or what that could do as a consequence. They were too caught up in the moment, hands gliding all over each other’s skin, tugging each other closer and _closer_ —never close enough—as the heat in the room skyrocketed. He smelled like chlorine from the pool and _Lance_ and something so distinctly heady and masculine that had her stomach fluttering in anticipation.

When the need for air grew too great, they only just barely pulled apart, panting into each other’s mouths and searching each other’s hooded, dazed eyes for an answer. An answer to what, Pidge had no idea, but they didn’t dwell on it long before they closed the gap between their lips again, just as urgent, just as desperate to taste as much of each other as they possibly could. His hands trailed down her sides to settle at her hips, leaving trails of fire on her skin in their wake as he pressed her against the kitchen island with his body.

Her breath caught in her chest when she felt the evidence of his arousal hard against her abdomen. Pidge hesitated for a short moment, her heart stuttering in its rhythm as she tried to examine what might happen if they kept ploughing through every boundary that should have come into place by now. She’d kissed him because she’d wanted to but this was turning into something else entirely. But it was hard to think when Lance had his hands on her ass and his breathing was uneven against her lips and when it felt this good to have his body so close to hers.

Lance hauled her up onto the counter without warning, and Pidge gasped against his lips when Lance braced one hand on the counter behind her, the other tugging her hips forward to fasten himself to her. She draped her arms tighter around his neck, intoxicated from the kiss, and hooked her ankles behind his back to accommodate the change in position. And that was when the throbbing bulge in his trunks made direct contact where she ached most for fulfilment. Heat bloomed between her legs and surged through her body from the point of contact, and she couldn’t help it. She rocked harder right into his erection, needing more friction, and let out a soft, keening whimper as pure bliss burned through her body, toes curling as her fingernails dug into his back. Lance groaned miserably and dropped his forehead on her shoulder, breathing heavily as he tried to concentrate on controlling himself.

In his mind, he was imagining pulling her sweatpants slowly off her legs and guiding her legs back around his waist, less impeded by any constraints. He was imagining his hand moving to shift aside her panties to stroke her in her most sensitive spot until he’d worked her up enough to push himself inside of her tight heat.

Pidge couldn’t help her moan, turned on beyond belief by the overwhelming arousal that singed her skin as it travelled through her. Part of her knew they should stop because she wasn’t sure she was ready to go all the way right now on this counter, but another part of her, the part roaring and ready to go, the part that was wet and flushed with overwhelming need right now, relished in Lance’s hot panting breaths against her skin and wanted release from the tight coil of arousal between her legs. She couldn’t figure out if they were in too deep to turn back now, but her lust addled brain couldn’t think of anything but the intense pleasure that one little contact had caused.

“…Katie,” Lance murmured in a strained voice, lifting his head and glancing at her with his _too_ blue eyes.

Pidge let out a shallow exhale, her legs shaking from her increasing desire. His fingers just barely dipped under the waistband of her sweatpants, teasing the top of her panties, and Pidge got the distinct impression he was waiting for her permission.

On the one hand, this would become a point of no return and could lead to numerous other ramifications and unanswered questions when they still hadn’t properly dealt with whatever their issues were yet. But on the other hand (and the one she was definitively leaning towards), her body was overheated, and she knew Lance could make her feel really good. With him, she could find that desperate release she needed for all that tension knotted up between her thighs.

And above that, she _wanted_ it. God, did she want it.

And he clearly wanted it too.

A loud clearing of a throat by the doors made their choice for them.

Whatever haze of lust had settled around them shattered and they crashed back to Earth almost simultaneously. Wide eyed, they both snapped their gazes to the doorway only to see Shiro standing there, arms crossed in front of his chest and a brow raised, unimpressed.

“We could hear your argument ricocheting off the walls of the castle. Hunk ran to get me because he thought you were going to start physically fighting or something. It’s late, and we all need our rest. We don’t know what might happen or how long we’ll be fighting or when we’ll next get downtime so I suggest you take advantage of that. I don’t know what the hell is going on in here, but the kitchen is not the location for whatever _private_ discussions you need to have.”

_But judging by what I just saw, maybe your rooms aren’t an appropriate location for this discussion either…_

Lance swallowed hard, reluctantly letting go of Pidge while her face burned completely red and she hopped down from her perch on the counter. Pidge’s legs still felt a little like jello, and she had to lean against the counter to calm down her hyperactive heart, the fire burning between her legs, and her skin tingling everywhere Lance had touched her.

“Not to pry, but maybe a little separation might be necessary for the night?” Shiro suggested, the slightest flush on his cheeks as he scratched the back of his neck.

Lance nodded and exhaled shakily as he ran a hand through his wet hair. He was looking a little wild in the eyes and distinctly keeping his eyes off of Pidge. Apparently, her lips were plush and swollen, and he was convinced if he looked at her, he’d be tempted to kiss her again.

“I-I’m just gonna…” Lance said in a pained voice, awkwardly pointing towards the door with a thumb, “…uh, sh-shower. You know, cuz of the pool water and all.”

Though it didn’t take a mind reader to figure out his real intentions, especially since he was a bit hunched over and had a hand partially covering his raging boner. She felt bad, but Shiro’s statement had a lot of reason. They were seriously not in the right mindset and full of lust and emotional and being by each other wasn’t such a good idea.

“Right,” Pidge said quietly, watching as Lance walked weirdly to the door, a slight wince on his face with every one of his steps.

_I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die of **blue balls** of all things!_

“Lance!” She called out, feeling like she had to say something, but she didn’t know what. Were they really about to end the evening on that note? “Uh… umm, that is… uh… are you…?”

He paused at the doorway, holding on to the frame as he turned back over his shoulder to look at her. She got the distinct impression that he was storing material for his spank bank as his gaze swept down her figure. He looked conflicted, like he wanted to say something too but couldn’t find the words.

“Goodnight, Pidge,” Lance finally said, his mind replaying their kiss on repeat as he relished every one of the soft sighs and slight whimpers she’d made.

“G-goodnight, Lance…” Pidge breathed when he made himself scarce, feeling lightheaded as she touched her lips with trembling fingers. She could still hear her heartbeat ringing in her ears. It wasn’t even like that was her first kiss, but for some reason, she was reacting to it as if it was.

Shiro shuffled further into the room, and all of a sudden, she remembered he was there. He was staring at her oddly, so Pidge averted her gaze with a flush.

“What?”

“Do you… uh, want to talk about it?” he asked tentatively, stooping down and picking up her fallen hair scrunchie to hand back to her. She didn’t even realise it had gotten displaced so far from her position.

“Shiro, no offence,” she cleared her throat as she retied her hair, “but you’re like my weird space dad/older brother hybrid person and I wouldn’t even talk to my real dad or Matt about _this_ so the answer is no.”

He chuckled awkwardly to himself. “Understandable, but I’m responsible for you and Lance since your parents aren’t around to keep watch over you so it’s my job to make sure you’re being careful in all of your endeavours. And responsible.”

Pidge’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not five year olds, _Dad_. What do mean?”

He scratched at his cheek, his face darkening with a full blush this time. “I-I only mean that you need to use protection. You could be very fertile and not even know and while babies are cute and it’s a beautiful cycle of life and I know you’re nearly an adult and it’s ultimately your decision, and I would never judge whatever age you would ummm, want to end up procreating, but uh, right now would not be the best time to start a family—much less in our kitchen—since we haven’t secured an end to the Galra insurgents.”

Oh hell no! This man was _not_ about to give her a sex talk! Neither her father nor mother had ever brought up a conversation like this with her, and she refused to get the embarrassing talk of legend now from Shiro of all people.

(Then again, when Pidge was at home, she’d had no friends much less a boyfriend so they probably hadn’t ever thought that it would be a topic they would need to broach).

“Oh my God!” Pidge’s face was on fire. “ _No_! Bad Shiro! Stop talking! That is _not_ what happened!”

“…Then where were your clothes?” He leaned over as if looking for discarded clothing.

“Hunk did this!”

 _Is this some kind of threesome foreplay?_ _Damn, these young-uns are into some kinky shit…_

“ _Shi-ro_!” She snapped her fingers emphatically to get him to pay special attention and listen to her properly. “Lance and I were not about to have sex, okay?! He came from the pool and I was sparring with Keith and Hunk forced us in this room together and threatened that he wouldn’t let us out until we talked out our issues!”

“And somehow you ended up like… that?”

_That grope-y, pawing, tongue-y, moany mess? Cuz it sure as hell seems like you were about to go down that road._

She choked on a response, because she really couldn’t find an answer to that. Because Shiro was right. They’d gone 0 to 100 in only a few ticks. In fact, piecing together the sequence of events, she still wasn’t sure how they’d jumped from arguing and insulting each other to full blown making out. (And also kind of humping each other?)

“I… I don’t know how.”

“Did you both make up at least?”

“We…” Had they truly? Making out on a counter didn’t specifically mean solving their grievances with each other. She still didn’t know what had set Lance off about her and Keith, and he probably still wanted to know why she ran. Plus he’d said some stuff that made no sense to her and they clearly needed to parse that out. “I honestly don’t know…”

Shiro had a pitying look on his face, but mercifully didn’t ask her another question. She would have no answers. She still wasn’t even sure what had happened herself. “Pidge, I trust that you’ll figure it out. You _and_ Lance. I won’t get in your business since you’re working out your problems, I hope, but if you need to talk, I’ll listen.”

She nodded absentmindedly. “I-I think I need to think about some stuff. Umm, alone though.”

“Do you want me to make you a cup of tea and bring it by your room later?” he asked kindly.

“That would be great,” Pidge responded gratefully as she started to head out of the kitchen. Her underwear was uncomfortably damp, sticking to her crotch, and she wanted to change it. “Thanks for understanding, Shiro.”

“Of course.” He frowned in concern, but didn’t object as she escaped from the room.

It took a lot of strength to put one foot in front of the other and drag herself to her room. Because now that the adrenaline and lust and all the fluffy feelings clogging her head had whooshed out, fear had taken its stead and nausea roiled in her stomach. Pidge kind of felt like she was half in shock.

What the hell had just happened between her and Lance? Sure, it had been fantastic and honestly she had no complaints, but it was a lot.

She passed by Lance’s room on the way to hers and paused in front of it for a second, poised to knock on the door, and contemplating if it would be a good idea to try to talk right now. They’d resolved nothing and in her opinion had complicated matters even more because of their hormones and she didn’t know what anything meant anymore and her mind was racing at a speed too fast for her to comprehend or catch up. But she was reminded that it had taken Lance a great deal of control to stop in the first place and he currently was in bad shape (which was actually kind of her fault) so maybe it wasn’t a good idea to fuck up his night even worse.

Tomorrow.

Maybe she’d try to talk to him tomorrow or something.

By the time Pidge had gotten back to her room, her mind had cycled through fear and apprehension, denial, and settled on some sort of shocked excitement that had her full on blushing as she remembered key details of their passionate little moment. Most especially, the way he’d looked at her like he wanted to ravish her. And then there was the fact that she’d kissed him first.

The apprehension returned, bringing her back full circle, as she realised she’d initiated everything and by doing so, had probably revealed her feelings for him. There was no way he didn’t know she liked him now. The blue and green trash caterpillars floated by her head inquisitively as Pidge plopped down on her bed, absentmindedly touching her tingling lips, her face flushing with heat yet again. And then her eyes widened slightly in realisation of something she hadn’t stopped to really consider the implications of.

Lance had definitely kissed her back. And enthusiastically.

Did that mean that he liked her too?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna publish two chapters at once, but I didn’t have enough time to finish ch8 and I’m not in a place where I can just say fuq work rn so… ^^;;

Pidge was seriously getting sick of these sleepless nights.

It was like every other night she had some issue and wasn’t able to get proper sleep. Granted, this time it _was_ her fault, but that didn’t make dealing with the issues any better. The suns hadn’t even risen on Qiolea which meant she’d probably only gotten two or three varga of sleep. And the worst thing was waking up feeling like everything was fine for all of two ticks before the events that had transpired last night had crashed full force in her mind.

The fight.

The kiss.

The intensity of their near hookup.

With a groan, Pidge covered her blushing face with her covers and burrowed under her blanket as she curled up in a ball. She was so stupid. She’d thought maybe she’d get over what happened, but it wouldn’t leave her mind and now she was definitely thinking about how she’d probably permanently damaged their friendship.

“Why is Lance so confusing…?” she muttered, staring at her phone as it lit up with a message from Coran that her results were ready whenever she wanted to pick them up. For a brief second, she’d thought it was Lance and had gotten a little nervous.

But one minute he was frustrated as hell with her, the next, he was playful and bantering with her, and then he was giving her looks like he wanted her naked in his bed, and then he was pissed off and ignoring her all over again. This back and forth was giving her whiplash.

And then there was the fact that he thought she and Keith were an item, and the fact that she could confirm that whenever she had anything to do with Keith, Lance exhibited some nasty jealous behaviour. Because now that she thought about it, he kind of acted like how Pidge tended to get when Lance was all over Allura. But that was because she _liked_ Lance and it was hard liking someone who she could actively see pursuing someone else and that always brought out her attitude… like this seemed to bring out Lance’s…

She rolled over onto her other side and ran a hand through her tangled hair in exasperation. “Does he actually like me like that?”

It was a thought she’d turned over and over and _over_ in her mind until she’d fallen into a fitful sleep. And she still couldn’t come up with any definitive answers. Disregarding the fact that he kissed her back, Lance being jealous meant that he liked Pidge, right? But if there was one thing Pidge was certain of, it was that Lance liked _Allura_. He had for roughly the three years they’d been in space.

…Right?

Her stomach twisted in her abdomen, partly terrified and partly excited.

Pidge slapped around for her space phone and when she located it behind her head, she dialled Keith’s number immediately. When he didn’t pick up on the first call, she hung up and dialled his number again. She wasn’t totally sure why she was calling him, and not Hunk, for example. But Hunk was objectively in both her _and_ Lance’s camp and something told her after the fight he’d heard yesterday, he’d be more inclined to gather gossip on the aftermath than help her sort through the mess in her mind.

Keith, however, was more similar to her in his approach to problems. They were great at the physical stuff—punching bags and people for him, dissecting and making tech for her—to get their minds off things, but dealing with emotions took serious introspection. And one fantastic thing about Keith was how he could compartmentalise like nobody’s business and figure out solutions while leaving his emotions out of it. That was something she hoped she could learn from him one day.

With a sigh, she hung up the dead call and called him one more time, deciding to give up if he didn’t respond within the next three rings. But he did.

“Keith…” she croaked when he finally picked up with an unenthusiastic greeting of ‘it’s early’. “I need advice about Lance. And before you direct me to Shiro, I would have considered him, but he tried to give me a sex talk yesterday night so he has permanently lost all privileges of hearing about my personal girl grievances.”

Keith was silent for several ticks before exhaling like he was seriously exhausted. She wished she could hear thoughts over the phone. She would kill to know what he was thinking.

 _“Do I even want to ask?”_ he muttered.

“No questions. Your job is to come over here and console me with your advice. This is your punishment for conspiring with Hunk yesterday because your meddling blew a finite hole in my relationship with Lance.” Not quite, but it wasn’t like she was about to tell him that they’d gotten into an intense argument all on their own accord. “A bottle of Nunvill would be awesome too. You can’t say no, by the way.”

Keith sighed again. _“I’ll be there in three doboshes.”_

Pidge occupied her time waiting by rocking back and forth and intermittently groaning. This was probably the worst time for her to be so conflicted by things going on in her life. She’d always considered herself somewhat lucky that she’d avoided all of the crazy drama that some teenage girls would experience in school. She remembered sitting in some classes at the Garrison years ago and hearing some girls behind her talk about fighting with boyfriends or making out with best friends on accident. She used to scoff at them, looking down on them for filling their lives with all these unnecessary distractions and issues.

But now here she was, in the very same place because she’d kissed her best friend.

Someone outside her door entered some numbers into her door’s keypad, and then the door whooshed open, letting the noise of the AC in the halls fill the room. Pidge didn’t even question why Keith knew her code in the first place, but she heard him walk in, pause by the door and then shuffle over piles of robot parts to her bed.

“I’m assuming you’re this immobile lump?” Keith joked as he sat at the edge of her bed. He poked her sharply twice on the leg. “Or is that also a pile of dirty clothes?”

Pidge pulled the covers off her face and gave Keith a miserable look. He had been smirking, but upon seeing the expression on her face, he frowned instead, looking concerned.

“Are you sick or something? Your face is completely red.”

“Keith. I kissed Lance.”

_Wait. The fuck? Is she being serious?_

Keith’s brows lifted the slightest, and he looked pretty shocked. But he said nothing out loud, so she continued.

“Last night. Well, I kissed him, but he kissed back and then we made out and it was kind of intense and I’m pretty sure we both were this close to throwing caution to the wind and hooking up on the kitchen counter or something,” Keith made a disgusted face, but Pidge ignored the shift in his expression, “but Shiro interrupted us and now I’m freaking out because I have no idea how to compartmentalise all this information!”

Keith rubbed his chin slowly with narrowed eyes as he took in what she’d told him.

_Has anyone cleaned the kitchen counter yet?_

“We didn’t _do_ anything! There were no actual fluids involved, unless you count spit swapping. But Lance hasn’t texted me yet…”

She had no idea what Lance might be thinking and yes, granted, the situation hadn’t happened that long ago, but she couldn’t help but wish she could talk to him about this. And sure, she could reach out first, but he probably had more experience than her with this kind of thing. He was the one who’d had short flings with aliens back whenever he had the chance.

“Assuming this happened after Hunk and I pushed you two together, it hasn’t even been three varga, Pidge. You’re overreacting.”

“Yeah but…” But her trepidation made no sense. He was probably still asleep. “What does this all mean?”

“Are you serious, Pidge? Because this is ridiculous, even for you.”

“What’s ridiculous?” She picked up her phone again and hoped maybe staring daggers at it would make Lance text her. “And stop insulting me. You can’t be mean because this is your fault.”

“What the fuck. How is this in any way my fault? We forced you to talk. No one made you… nearly have cringe-y sex on a countertop. Which, thanks by the way. We’ll have to disinfect the counter with bleach now.” The tips of his ears were a bit red, and he cleared his throat. “And what I’m saying is you know exactly what Lance kissing you back means. Even you’re not _that_ oblivious.”

Yes, she did know what it typically meant when a guy kissed back, but if it was true that he felt that way about her, then that’d mean everything she’d theorised was wrong…

“…I’ve never been off on my hypotheses before,” Pidge responded quietly, her face heating up anew. “Lance liking me—being attracted to me—is just… it’s hard to accept.”

Keith’s expression was nonplussed. “Is it really that shocking to you that Lance would find you attractive? That he’d actually _be_ attracted to you?”

“Yes!” Pidge said emphatically, sitting up abruptly. “Up until recently, he was all about hot babes! This is new!”

“ _Recently_? Try a whole deca-phoeb ago. _Yes_ , that long,” Keith asserted when she made a face at him like he’d just said that she would grow to be as tall as Shiro one day. “Pidge, unless we needed him to charm planet leaders or diplomats, he stopped flirting with random alien chicks a long time ago. Try paying attention. The only reason you think this is recent is because you’re too close to him to see when he stopped treating you as _just_ a friend. The way I see it, he’s been trying to pursue you and you’ve missed it all.”

“No, he hasn’t. He has never flirted with me or used those corny lines when he’s trying to get with someone,” she pointed out.

“Ever stop to think that it’s because he wasn’t that serious about those other girls, but maybe that he’s completely serious about you?” Keith shrugged, leaning back on his elbows and staring at the ceiling in exasperation as if he couldn’t believe he was spending his morning giving relationship advice. “Or maybe, I don’t know, thinks too highly of you than to use half-assed tactics to try to woo you. He’s being serious, Pidge. And you just can’t see it.”

“Can you blame me?! It’s literally _unbelievable_! I was never his type. Even when I told you all I was a girl it was still ‘dude’ and ‘buddy’ and punching my shoulder for almost a month or two before he finally cut that out! And even though he does see me as a girl, he hangs out with me like I’m one of the guys. He treats Allura like she’s some beautiful flower. I get the buddy cop routine.”

Except for the times his behaviour didn’t fit in that category, now that she thought about it.

Her mind could easily think of several instances at once where he’d doted on Pidge or acted in ways that made it hard to find the distinction between friendly and amorous. Or times he’d downright blurred the line.

Like that time Hunk had set up a movie night so Allura could see The Princess Bride and Lance had spent the next two movements responding to everything Pidge requested with ‘as you wish’. At the time, she’d still chalked it up to Lance trying to annoy her on purpose, even though he wasn’t being facetious. Or the time she’d told him she’d always wanted to learn how to tango so Lance had started an impromptu class on the planets they visited for the alliance, but he’d kept using Pidge as his demonstration partner despite Allura being there too. Sure, she’d loved being spun and dipped by Lance and feeling his hand on her lower back and dancing all closely pressed to him. But she’d assumed he kept picking her because Allura was closer to his height at the time and so manoeuvring with a smaller partner would be easier.

(Which now that she thought about it, didn’t make any sense as an excuse because most Latin dance tended to work a little easier with partners with less of a height difference).

Things like that had happened a lot more recently and she could admit that a very miniscule, teeny tiny part of her deep, _deep_ down probably had had a feeling that there was some meaning behind that, but she’d pushed it to the back of her mind. And now they were forcing their way to the forefront and she couldn’t ignore it when all these signs were starting to become glaringly obvious evidence that she’d clearly missed.

“It’s true he treats Allura like she’s a princess, Pidge,” Keith said after watching her stew in her thoughts for a while, “but that’s because she _is_ a princess. But putting someone on a pedestal isn’t necessarily love, you know?”

Pidge stared down at her closed fists where they were clutching her blanket. “He’s said it before though. Once in the past, he mentioned how he’s always wanted a fairy tale romance. To be the knight in shining armour for a princess. Allura fits that fantasy completely.”

_Pidge, stop selling yourself short._

“So maybe you weren’t his type physically, whatever, but people don’t fall in love with the images of someone else. You fall for their personalities and their heart, their courage, their strength of character, the compassion and care they show for people they barely know. The sacrifices they make for you and other people. The way they never fail to put a smile on your face. The way they treat you like you’re always worth saving. Like you’re always worth giving another chance to. The way you’re always worth it to them, even when you’re at your lowest and worst.”

Keith was definitely thinking about Shiro when he’d said all of that (especially because the scarred man had popped up in his head), but Pidge understood the gist of what he’d been saying to her. But she didn’t know how to respond to that. She couldn’t really focus over the intense thrumming of her heartbeat in her ears.

Did Lance really like her? For real?

“Pidge, the people we look for—the people we need—as we grow older tend to change as time goes on.” He let out a long breath, the far off look in his eyes disappearing as he focused his indigo gaze on her. “Maybe younger Lance had his head up in the clouds and wanted a fairy tale and glory and honour to feel accomplished, but the Lance we know now isn’t looking for that. What he is looking for probably matches up with what he sees he has with you.”

“…It’s scary, Keith,” Pidge confessed quietly. To her horror, her voice wavered a bit, and she felt like her heart was fit to burst out of her chest with how hard it was pounding. “I don’t know how to deal with it. What if I mess it all up? How am I supposed to figure out how to bring this up with him? Once it’s out there, we can’t take it back. If we try to backslide, everything gets ruined. If we go forward and mess it up and lose what we have, everything gets ruined.”

This whole time, it’d just been her liking him and knowing there was quite possibly no chance of reciprocation had made her begrudgingly okay with it. An unreciprocated crush was easy enough to deal with, if not for the occasional heartache. But if he had feelings for her too, what did that mean for their friendship? She had no idea where they were supposed to go from there. She knew how to be his friend. She had that on lock. But being more was a different story. Her ex Joth hadn’t been a serious relationship. She’d known that going into it so she’d never put in her full effort.

Lance was a whole other category altogether and so much more would be riding on any relationship they pursued.

“Keith, this changes everything,” she whispered.

Keith contemplated her silently for several ticks before he finally shifted and crawled across her bed so he was sitting beside her. To her surprise, he wrapped a consoling arm around her shoulder. The concern and discomfort she could feel radiating from his mind made her want to cry. He clearly wasn’t one to use touch as a way to console someone and she knew it made him uncomfortable—well, unless they were Shiro—but he was making an effort to help her get through her issues.

“Is that really so bad?” he asked quietly.

“It is. If anything goes wrong—”

“You keep talking about everything going wrong, Pidge, but did you ever consider the fact that _nothing_ will go wrong? What if, and hear me out here, what if your relationship blossoms and you guys actually last?”

“I’m not predisposed to think in positives like that, Keith.” She gave him a small, grateful smile though.

He snorted and shook his head. “Me either. But hey, if I can do it, so can you.”

Pidge let out a long exhale. “I’ve solved nothing yet with Lance and now this happened and I don’t know how to approach him anymore.”

“It’s just a kiss, Pidge,” Keith remarked in amusement.

“If Shiro or someone kissed you, you wouldn’t be acting this chill, you know?” She shot back, and his eyes nearly became saucers as his cheeks erupted in colour. “That’s right. I know all about who you’re crushing on. And anyway, it wasn’t _just_ a kiss.”

“Be that as it may,” Keith coughed into his fist, choosing to ignore her comment, “Pidge, you can’t let fear dictate your life.”

“I hate having all these feelings,” she groaned, dropping her face into her hands. “Why did I have to fall for _Lance_?”

“Emotions are a huge part of being human.”

“Said the nonhuman,” she said.

“Hey. I resent that,” he intoned, a totally blank look on his face. “That’s hurtful.”

Pidge snorted and leaned her head back against the wall, finding comfort in the warmth of his hand rubbing her shoulder. She was still conflicted about what to do with her Lance Situation, and while she did appreciate Keith’s words of advice and what he brought up as evidence, at the end of the day, it was all speculation.

(Speculation with a shit ton of evidence, but speculation still).

Lance hadn’t confessed to her and she hadn’t heard anything in his mind that indicated him liking her back. Plus above all that, she didn’t even know if that kiss meant anything to him, and that was what she needed to know that could prove her hypothesis once and for all. Until then, she wouldn’t dare get her hopes up. Because if she was wrong…

“…So what do I do now?”

“You take a chance. I know this is something you want to pick apart and calculate every inch of before jumping in, but love doesn’t work like that,” Keith explained softly, gaze a bit far off. “It hits you in the heart without warning and makes you crazy and the only way to solve the destruction it leaves in its wake is if you jump off the cliff. And you have to hope Lance will be there to catch you.”

“You’re like a wise old owl, Keith.”

He chuckled. “It’s up to you, but I think you should put aside all your thinking and analysing and just jump in head first in unknown situations for once.”

She sighed. “Maybe…”

It made her nauseous, but maybe Keith was right that she had to go about this a different way. Trying to analyse this clearly wasn’t working. She just wasn’t _getting_ something and neither was Lance, so a different approach might be for the best.

Now she just needed to work up the courage to talk to Lance.

 

…

 

Coran hadn’t been in the med bay when Pidge went in there to check the results of her samples, but she pulled up the charts and diagrams with baited breath. Then she pulled up her normal levels for the components of her body whenever she had physicals after particularly taxing missions.

Components of the Galra nano-molecule were in her cerebrospinal fluid, nearly imperceptible as it had assimilated itself with the components of the fluid by now as if it belonged there, but there were no serious issues. The levels of the components of her blood also seemed to be fine, or at least in the normal range for human women her age. Iron was fine. Haemoglobin was the usual.

The only abnormality with both her CSF and blood though, was the very low glucose in the fluid. She minimised the other results and blew the data on her blood sugar up so she could look at it more clearly. It was well below normal levels, as if it was getting consumed at much faster intervals than it should. Her metabolic rates remained even though, so it wasn’t her body using it up fast.

“I guess that makes sense…”

She supposed that’s why she’d felt more stressed and irritable lately. It looked like this Galra weapon was feeding off of her, taking in the glucose from the fluid in her brain, which was probably why more glucose than normal was being transported from her blood. And from the looks of it, although the Garla tech wasn’t leaving any residue or hazardous waste in her body, it was causing a build-up of excess protein in her CSF, acting like some sort of bacterial infection or something.

Pidge frowned, rubbing her forehead as she read over the information. Longterm, this thing could be potentially harmful, especially if she forgot to eat, but even though it wasn’t currently causing any harm that didn’t mean it couldn’t become parasitic in the future. It was already halfway there. The question was, was it worth it to create an antidote now? Did the benefits of having the weapon in her system outweigh the disadvantages?

She was considering all this information so deeply that she didn’t hear the doors to the med lab open. She also didn’t hear the footsteps approaching her, even when said person came to a stop right behind her, staring at the same charts from over her head. It wasn’t until she caught that familiar scent of soap mingled with the subdued crisp scent of the ocean that she realised there was someone there.

Pidge inhaled sharply and spun around, her ponytail whipping out wildly and nearly smacking Lance in the face had he not anticipated it and leaned far back.

“Lance, what the fuck?! Don’t do that!” She put a hand on her chest, willing her heart to calm down. And then realised who was in her presence. “Oh… _Lance_.”

“Sorry, Pidge. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He absolutely was not sorry. She could hear him laughing his ass off in his head. A shit-eating grin was playing on his lips, but he stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked back and forth on his heels. “You seemed a little preoccupied so I didn’t want to disturb you. Why are you looking at your test results anyway?”

“No reason.” She shifted to block his view and quickly swiped her hand across the holographic screen to make it disappear. Her reaction was just a little too suspicious and rapidfire to be normal and Lance’s eyes narrowed a bit as he watched her. “Just your common, everyday physical. You know, height, weight, eyesight, the works.”

“Except you were looking at a blood test. And something about CSF. What’s all that about?” he questioned, sounding nonchalant enough, but she could see the tension in his shoulders.

Fucking hell.

If Lance thought something was off, he became unusually perceptive, and she could see the gears shifting in his mind as he put his full attention on her.

“Uh, well you see… the thing is… I’m pregnant?” she said in a partial joking tone.

_Wait, what…?_

Lance’s confusion and brief look of panic like his head was about to explode was so funny that Pidge couldn’t help but start snickering. He frowned, unamused, and gave her a deadpan look that could give Keith’s a run for his money.

“Ha ha. But somehow, I don’t think you would hide that from us. And I’m pretty sure you had the wine at the banquet.”

“Right…” She licked her lips and glanced back over her shoulder to make sure she’d actually minimised the screens. “Nothing major. Just needed to do blood work to check my allergies and the levels of histamines in my blood and crap.”

She was so glad that Lance wasn’t familiar with a lot of technical or medical jargon because he looked confused, but ultimately accepting of what she’d said. She wouldn’t dare mention anything about periods. That excuse may have worked on Coran, but Lance had two older sisters. He probably was well acquainted with the female menstrual cycle. Or at least knew enough about it that she couldn’t trick him.

“As long as nothing’s wrong.”

“Yeah…”

They fell into an uneasy silence, Lance rubbing the back of his neck with an anticipatory glance at her every few ticks while Pidge stared at the ground, picking at her fingernails. It was like they were both waiting for someone to make a move. To breech the conversation they really needed to have about yesterday’s little makeout session. But she didn’t want to be the one. Keith’s advice came to her mind again, but that didn’t make it any easier to take the first step.

Lance took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So… we need to talk. About… you know.”

Her pulse instantly began to double-time. “Yeah.”

“I spent a lot of time thinking about last night and I guess I wanted to say that I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blown up on you like that. I just… I felt like I’d lost my place in your life. It sounded stupid to me when I talked to Hunk about it, so I’m not surprised you got mad over it.”

Pidge looked up and met his gaze. Lance looked just about as frazzled as she felt. He had a weary expression in his eyes, and they were full of fatigue as if he hadn’t gotten a proper night of beauty rest. Even his eyes had some semblance of bags underneath them. He also seemed to have skipped some of his beauty routine that morning because she could tell from the slight shadow of the hair along his jaw that he hadn’t properly shaved.

Case in point: he looked just as lost as she did, but he was making an effort to try to figure this out with her. She owed him the same effort.

“Lance, no one in my life could ever replace you.” She reached out and took one of his hands in both of hers, squeezing it slightly with a sincere smile on her face. “And not just because you alone occupy the Dork Extraordinaire position in my life. I told you before that you’re important to me. And not just as a friend. You’re my family too. I, uh… I care about you. I don’t want us to be broken anymore. And I’m not sure what yesterday was, but it made me think about some things too. Things we should probably discuss.”

Her face was firetruck red by now, but Lance had her rapt attention and when he smiled in relief, she felt the heavy weight on her shoulders lift the slightest bit. Maybe this wouldn’t be as hair pulling hard as she was thinking.

“I agree. There was something else I needed to say. Umm, Pidge… I…”

“Yes, Lance?” She held her breath, eyes going wide at the jumble of emotions in his mind.

“I, uh…” His cheeks were the slightest bit flushed. Lance reached up and rubbed the back of his neck again, his face twisted in an odd expression. “I’m sorry. For kissing you.”

There was a moment where she thought she’d been hearing some random thought, but Pidge had clearly seen his mouth move. A sense of dread pooled in her stomach and she dropped his hand with furrowed brows.

“…Wait, what the hell?”

“It should have never happened,” he continued. “We were too emotional from the argument, and I guess I wasn’t thinking straight, and I let my hormones take over and I went too far. Pidge, you’re far too important to me to ruin our friendship over something like this.”

_Especially when we’re probably not on the same page._

That was _not_ what she wanted to hear.

And truth be told, hearing him say he wished it never happened pierced her straight in the heart. What did he mean by not on the same page? Did the kiss mean nothing to him then?

“I mean, all this yes no, hot cold, mixed signals stuff is kind of a lot to deal with. And yesterday, you were right about being tired of all our fighting. I am too.” He wouldn’t look her in the eye, as if he wasn’t even fully confident in everything he was saying. “This is really messing us up and I don’t want this to be what breaks _us_ , you know? Yesterday was just…”

_Insane how much I wanted you._

“…an awful mess and we went way too far and after having time to seriously think, I’m convinced maybe some distance between us for a while might be for the best. At least until we can be proper friends again.”

Pidge’s breath hitched incredulously and panic went through her heart. “Wait, Lance, _no_ —”

_“Paladins, report to the bridge. Now.”_

Shiro’s urgent voice echoed through the room and killed the conversation before Pidge could finish crafting her response to stop whatever it was Lance had been trying to do. The authority in Shiro’s voice had them instantly putting their conversation on the backburner. They stared at each other for all of a few ticks and seemed to understand that it was time for business.

They both left the med lab and rushed the short distance to the main deck. When they got there, panting a bit from the exertion, King Qylt was cowering in the middle of the semi-circle the others had made, legs curled into his chest as he whimpered. Allura looked fed up, Keith was pinching the bridge of his nose to keep his irritation at bay, and the rest looked like they were also suffering from similar states of fatigue.

“What happened?” Lance asked, staring down at the king with a frown.

“Commander Vhruk contacted King Qylt.” Shiro ran a hand through his hair, pulling back the white floof before it flopped back on his forehead. “He let it slip that he was staying with us and I’m pretty sure the Galra commander figured out everything.”

“It was an accident!” King Qylt whimpered, but then shut up quickly with a squawk when Allura turned a murderous glare on him.

Pidge wasn’t surprised shit had hit the fan considering they’d let an important part of their mission ride on the _king_ of all people. Hunk groaned beside Lance, looking worried, and Lance put a hand on his shoulder.

“She sent him a video message with our next options.” Shiro nodded at Coran who pulled up the feed that they’d been watching before he called the rest of the paladins in.

On the screen was a very buxom Galran woman with the trademark catlike qualities and purple furskin. Her teeth were sharp and violently jagged and the bloodlust in her gaze put a shiver down Pidge’s back. The woman still wore the Galra empire’s insignia. Even worse, she looked like she had nothing left to lose. Coran set the feed to play.

 _“Greetings, young paladins of Voltron. Do you think me a moron? I am well aware that dumbass king could never stick to one side as long as he lives. I wouldn’t be surprised if he spilled his guts about our mission to you, so I’m giving you Voltron paladins an ultimatum.”_ Commander Vhruk’s smirk grew on her face. _“Send one person to my exchange location, and only one, and it cannot be that princess or that halfling Galra you’re keeping on your crew.”_

Allura and Keith glanced at each other in partial annoyance and concern.

_“You bring me my weapon tomorrow, and as a favour to you, we will leave Qiolea alone and won’t plunge this planet in war. I have sent the coordinates of the location to meet up and the time you **will** arrive. This is non-negotiable. If the exchange doesn’t happen, if you try any tricks like sending more than one of you, if you attempt any kind of attacks on my stationed soldiers, my entire fleet will wipe you all from the galaxy. Qiolea will be no more, that is a guarantee. Your choice paladins. Make the wise one.”_

The feed froze from the end of the message and Coran pushed the screen over to the side before turning back to Shiro to continue the debrief.

“She wants to meet in the evening on a planet about a varga away from Qiolea that we can probably assume is midway to their secret base,” Coran told the rest of them.

“She could be bluffing,” Hunk commented quietly, wringing his hands together. “Her entire fleet could be one ship and only a few men.”

Allura nodded emphatically. “And this weapon is too dangerous to just hand over. What if we didn’t move it from the castle and we let her come to us. A small fleet would be easily defeated.”

“But that’s assuming her fleet is small. Her entire fleet could end up being extremely large.” Shiro crossed his arms over his chest, a pensive frown on his face. “And then what? We brought war to a planet that didn’t deserve it?”

“But the alternative is giving them a very dangerous weapon.” Lance pointed out. “And I don’t know about you, but if we draw them closer to us, wouldn’t it be easier to monitor both the weapon and the fleet?”

_Pidge needs to tell them the truth about the weapon being broken._

She could feel her skin prickling from his intense gaze and sure enough, when she glanced at Keith, he was levelling her with a steadfast look. Even knowing what was in his head, his message was clear. He wanted her to reveal the truth, or he would.

“We won’t have to worry about guarding the weapon,” Pidge started, drawing their attention to her as she rubbed her bicep, “because I broke the one they’re looking for.”

Shiro’s brows drew in sharply, and everyone snapped their gazes towards her. “ _What_?”

She winced the slightest at his tone. “You remember the night before the first gala that I did my recon and broke something I said was Plox? I was wrong. It was actually the Galra nanotech weapon I broke and took back with me.”

Allura rose a brow. “Pidge, when did you figure out you’d gotten it wrong?”

“I had a hunch after I scanned my armour. After Hunk and I analysed the elements of the weapon, I was certain I’d found the wrong thing. Keith found out after we investigated at the banquet.”

“Pidge, that day was almost a movement ago,” Hunk said incredulously. “Why didn’t you say anything then?”

There were many sounds of displeasure and disbelief. Pidge felt a little chastised, but Keith crossed his arms over his chest and stood his ground defiantly.

“Look,” he retorted with a scowl, “I know we could have mentioned it, but secrets aren’t well kept on this ship. We figured it would be better to bide our time with this information than risk King Qylt accidentally getting it. He could have revealed it to Commander Vhruk and seriously wrecked our chances. I mean, look at what he accidentally revealed just now?”

“She doesn’t know we have a broken weapon, so we won’t have to worry about protecting it in the exchange and can come up with a plan to trap her,” Pidge explained, trying to ignore the concerned look that Lance was giving her. She’d told him the charts and graphs she was looking at pertained to her allergies and now he was wondering if she was having continuous allergic reactions to her exposure to the weapon. “As of now, we have a serious advantage.”

“That’s prudent thinking, Keith, Pidge,” Shiro admitted after a few beats. “I can see where you’re coming from and given the turn of events, I understand why you kept it to yourselves, but I really wish you both would have at least told me.”

“Not to mention, the secret keeping,” Allura added with a frown. “Yes, we’re not all great at keeping secrets, but we’re a team. And this kind of development pertains to all of us so we can make the most informed decisions in our planning. If we had known you broke the weapon already, we could have avoided any part in our plan played by King Qylt.”

_And I wouldn’t have to run for the hills every time I see his stupid beak!_

“We were just doing what we thought would be right for the team,” Pidge commented, feeling guilty because to be fair, Allura was the only one being harassed. “I didn’t know this would blow up into something so huge.”

“Part of being a team means trusting that we won’t let you down, Pidge…” Lance said at length, giving her a slightly pained look.

_Trusting me._

“It’s not like I don’t trust you…” Pidge muttered, meeting Lance’s gaze. “I just didn’t think it was that important to tell.”

Whatever she’d said clearly didn’t sit well with Lance because a muscle ticked in his jaw and she felt that familiar irritation leaking from his mind. Part of her wanted to sit in a corner, curl up in a ball, and just cry. Why did nothing ever go right whenever she tried to talk to Lance?! It felt like every word they said made them butt heads at every corner and she didn’t know how to fix whatever was wrong with them. Once upon a time she could read him like a book. Why was it so difficult now?

“Be that as it may,” Shiro said uncomfortably, trying to pull the attention away from the awkward stare down she and Lance were having. “We need to figure out who to send. Obviously, whoever goes would be a decoy with some back up for our encounter with the commander. The rest of us will reside near Qiolea with the Blade of Marmora members Keith has on standby just in case her fleet decides to attack anyway. Think of it as a precaution.”

Hunk made a face of discomfort while Lance had no particular expression of interest or disinterest. But Lance _and_ Shiro were both definitely thinking that they would put themselves on the line.

So Pidge rose her hand slowly to the unhappy looks. “Send me. I’m the smallest and the most innocuous looking, plus my bayard doesn’t take the form of any swords or beam guns, so it’d be easier to lure her into some false sense of security which will make it much easier to get her guard down. And I know the most about the weapon.”

Her mind reading was another huge advantage here.

“Pidge, the last time I asked you to put yourself on the line, you nearly died…” Allura murmured regretfully and chewing a bit on her lower lip.

“That was in a situation where I knew next to nothing. We have a plan for this one, right Shiro?” She turned to him, imploring. “And you know what I said makes sense. I’m not going to let myself get hurt. And if we plan everything to the T, I’m sure I can stop Vhruk.”

“Pidge, are you sure?” he asked tentatively, but Shiro was pretty respectful of their wishes and if he knew she was serious, he wouldn’t knock down her wishes.

“I am. You guys don’t have to worry about me.” Pidge gave Hunk and Allura a reassuring smile since they both were projecting the most concern over this arrangement. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Is everyone okay with this?” Shiro asked with a sigh, though he didn’t particularly look satisfied with it though.

Lance crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not.”

Pidge snapped her head around and glowered at him. “ _Lance_ —”

“I know, I know. You probably think I’m belittling you again, but I’m really not. You’ve already had serious exposure to this Galra bullshit. And no offence, but you broke the weapon and ended up having a pretty bad allergic reaction which to be honest, I’m starting to think you’re still suffering from considering what you said the blood test was for.”

“I’m not,” Pidge argued. “It’s not a crime to monitor your blood every once in a while.”

“Except that this is coming after a near death experience because of your allergies. You had a full physical a few quintants ago. I’ve seen your allergic reactions to other stuff before, and you never followed this procedure. I may not be the best at biology, but I know enough to know that CSF has nothing to do with allergies,” Lance continued hotly. Coran frowned and looked at Pidge in confusion and she begged whatever deity was in space to stop whatever was compelling Lance to talk about this now. “Anyway, my point is that maybe someone else should take this part of the mission for the exchange. I’m not opposed to doing it.”

_Especially if it means protecting Pidge from getting hurt._

Pidge sighed and rolled her eyes. She should have known he was putting up a fight for a reason like that. While she was grateful that Lance took care in looking out for her, she really might be their best bet in this exchange with Commander Vhruk since she could read minds.

“Lance, I get what you’re saying, but honestly, your height makes you a little imposing sometimes and on top of that, it’s not like you have total noodle limbs anymore so you could be perceived as an actual threat.”

Hunk snorted and then quickly hid his mouth behind his hand when Lance shot him a dirty look. Allura looked like she was trying hard not to laugh though, and Keith was smirking in amusement.

“Lance, if you want, you and Hunk could be Pidge’s back up,” Keith supplied with a shrug. “But I also think if we’re going to lure her into a trap, it would be in our best interest to send the person who seems the least likely to be perceived as a threat.”

“But what if it’s too obvious?” Lance pressed. “What if Vhruk gets aggressively defensive and attacks Pidge?”

“No one wants Pidge hurt any more than you would, Lance,” Hunk said acutely, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing softly. “But she knows how to protect herself. And also that’s why we’ll be there for backup.”

Lance didn’t respond immediately, though his gaze shifted over to Pidge in slight defeat. “If you’re that determined, I won’t keep pushing but…”

“I have enough overprotective people in my life.” Pidge cocked a hip and rolled her eyes. “I don’t want that from you, Lance.”

_Then what exactly **do** you want from me? Why’d you kiss me last night, Pidge?_

It was totally unrelated, but Pidge’s brows jumped sharply in surprise. Her pulse kicked up immediately. The thought had come with such a strong feeling of pining that it nearly floored her. Lance’s eyes were still on her, wondering, and Pidge’s breath felt like it’d been knocked out of her. She gazed up at him, searching his eyes and surprised to find that same modicum of desire alight in his gaze that she’d seen the night before.

Shiro cleared his throat subtly and Pidge blinked, realising she and Lance had at some point turned completely toward each other and were staring at each other as if the whole world around them had disappeared. The sly smile on Hunk and Keith’s faces made her blush and she very quickly turned away. Lance didn’t move away from her though, and although he was facing Shiro, his hand was so close to hers they were nearly brushing their fingers together every time they inhaled.

“A-are we in accord?” Shiro repeated, looking between them with a slight unpleasant look on his face.

She realised why a tick later when Shiro’s mind replayed the awkward scene he’d walked in on in the kitchen the night before. Only she could see now why he’d tried to give her The Talk™ because the way she and Lance were wrapped up around each other made it pretty difficult to believe they were headed in any other possible direction.

“Yeah,” Lance responded, while Pidge just nodded and tried to will her flushing cheeks to cool it.

“Keith, get the Blades to do some quick recon of the location of the exchange point. We need to know where hiding places might be, the rough layout and terrain of the land. Ship docking, ports, everything.” Shiro turned to address the rest of them when Keith nodded his affirmation. “As of now, we are at war, everyone. Stay alert and be ready for a fight at any moment. We need to make sure we end this threat once and for all. Let’s show Commander Vhruk that the Voltron paladins are not to be messed with.”

They made verbal agreements and confirmed their understanding of the nature of their tasks.

But Pidge couldn’t lie as she stared at the frozen screen of Vhruk’s nasty sneer that she was feeling kind of uneasy.

 

…

 

“Head first,” Pidge muttered to herself as she paced in her room staring at the text she’d gotten from Lance that said ‘ok’. “Jump in head first.”

It was nervewracking waiting for Lance, but she wasn’t going to let the evening pass without fixing some things. She’d texted Lance earlier to stop by before he started his bedtime skincare routine. If he refused, she was planning to threaten him that she’d steal all his routine products and hide them in her piles of dirty laundry. It was a threat that she knew was especially effective on Lance and Hunk since they practically feared the piles of rancid clothes she had all over her room.

But in the end, she hadn’t had to use her secret weapon because Lance agreed. It was a simple text that she couldn’t really glean any kind of meaning behind, but at least he wasn’t opposed.

And now she was restlessly trudging through her room, kicking aside clothes in her path as she nearly gnawed her lip bloody in worry. What he’d said that afternoon hadn’t sounded right to her and then during the meeting what she’d heard had confirmed that there was more to this than he was letting on. But what was she supposed to say to him to get him to change his mind about this mess? She needed to clarify some stuff. And she wanted to know what the kiss meant to him because he’d come across sounding as if it was meaningless. And that hurt.

She was thrown even further into her unease by a knock on her door and Pidge took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she finally opened the door. Lance started to open his mouth to say something, but she quickly put a hand up to beat him to the punch.

“Look, I know you’re probably wondering what I want, but I don’t agree with what you said earlier today. We need to talk about this.” Pidge started. Lance’s brows were furrowed but he didn’t object so she continued. “I don’t know what’s gotten over us, but we need to clarify some things. First of all, I don’t think we need space.”

She stepped out of the doorway and turned around to walk back inside her room, but it wasn’t until she took a few more steps inside that she realised he wasn’t following her.

“Lance?”

“I uh, shouldn’t come in,” he said, staring at a random spot on the ground and scratching the back of his head.

“Why? Because my room is dirty and it gives you hives or something?” she drawled sarcastically. “If you’re about to crack that joke, I’ve heard every variation of it before, so try again.”

Lance cracked a smile but shook his head. “Well, that too, but I’m not so sure we should be alone, considering what happened during our last attempt to… _talk._ ”

_It’s not easy resisting your wishes, Pidge._

That got her brows up her forehead. “I really don’t think standing halfway out in the hallway is a good idea, especially considering Allura, the mice, and Hunk live for any drama and gossip. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had some sort of secret gossiping community going on in the castle. Besides, I’m not trying to fight you. But we really need to clarify some stuff.”

“Yeah, but I meant what I said earlier, Pidge. Whatever this weird thing is? It’s probably for the best that we stop it.”

But she was paying attention and the emotions in his mind didn’t match up at all to the words he was saying. Even earlier that day, it hadn’t matched up. Lance was lying. And it pissed her off that she didn’t know why.

“We can’t just backslide like that, Lance.” They’d already broken whatever friendship labels were limiting their relationship the moment they’d kissed. “I mean for crying out loud, we nearly had sex on a countertop, right? Can you really just pretend that didn’t happen?”

Lance’s expression looked torn between some sort of embarrassment and wanting to run and hide and fear and exhaustion and even a little irritation.

“I’m not trying to backslide. I’m trying to stop because we went too far. Pidge, last night you uh… you were… I couldn’t really control myself. Because you felt… really nice…?” He cringed at his own wording, but Pidge still understood the gist and her face went up in flames. “It was a really strong pull, Pidge. Like really strong. Like major erection bad. And I’m not trying to be gross, but I’m still thinking about it, and I’m sorry.”

_I mean it took me hours in the shower to get it all out yesterday night…_

She nearly choked on an inhale. “I get it, you dork! Stop talking!”

And she really wished he would stop thinking about his escapade the night before because now she was seeing him in the shower taking care of himself. She was completely drawn to the image of the taut muscles of his back and the tension in his shoulders and arm, his low groans, the rivulets of water dripping down his caramel skin and down his biceps and the muscles of his abdomen and his hand wrapped along the length of his thick, swollen—

Pidge groaned and rubbed her temple with both hands when a pang of arousal danced between her legs. The image would never get out of her head now.

(And even worse, she didn’t want it to!)

“You’re one of my best friends. You’re family.” Lance finally met her gaze and gave her a small, slightly pained smile. “And I don’t want to lose you. Especially not over something like this.”

“I can’t lose you either,” Pidge said decisively, rubbing her arm and trying to think about how to word what she needed to say the best way. “Look, I know last night was weird, but…”

Lance leaned against the doorway, his expression neutral, but she knew he was paying serious attention to what she was saying.

“First of all, I think there’s something you’ve got all wrong. I don’t like Keith romantically. We’ve never been an item and there’s never anything going on when we hang out and I wish you would believe me when I tell you this. I have _no_ feelings for Keith.”

She stopped just shy of confessing how she felt for Lance. Call her a coward, but she still wanted to hear it from Lance first. Pidge was serious about avoiding heartbreak. Because if she got her hopes up and was completely wrong about everything and Lance was still into Allura, it would crush her and she wasn’t sure how long it would take her to get back on her feet.

“No matter what I do,” she continued, “you never trust what I say and that hurts, Lance. So you need to understand that me and Keith are _just_ friends. Yes, Keith is broody gothic vampire pretty but that’s uh… that’s not my type.”

Lance’s expression shifted subtly. He was receptive to her words, but now he looked like he was waiting for something. Or searching. “Your ex-boyfriend was a lot like Keith, you know?”

“Me dating Joth wasn’t a subconscious desire to get with Keith, if that’s what you mean. He was kind of quiet, but I liked him for other reasons.” Not to mention the fact that she had no idea where Lance was getting this comparison from. If anything, she thought Joth kind of looked like _Lance_ only with blue hair and the whole tail thing. Plus the way he’d kept asking her about Earth stuff was extremely similar to the way Lance kept asking her to explain science stuff. “And I know that you still want an explanation for that night I ran, and I promise I’ll tell you. Not right now. Maybe not soon, but eventually, I’ll tell you. But I need you to be patient with me. I haven’t figured all my shit out yet. And telling you what happened is too huge to deal with in one conversation and it’s not something that we’ll be able to ignore in the future so I want to hold off for a bit.”

At least until they got their battle for Qiolea out of the way.

She was rambling, she knew, but Lance didn’t interrupt her as she verbally processed her thoughts. He was quiet for a long while, just contemplating what she said, but finally his shoulders untensed and he sighed.

“Okay. I can live with that. For now.”

_Is it really something that bad that it has her looking so uneasy?_

“I’m sorry for hurting you over something so important to you. Our game nights are important to me too, Lance. Every conversation we’ve had about your sisters and brothers and Nadia and Sylvio, your wishes for the future, they’ve all stuck with me. They’re part of the reason I…” Fell for him. She stared at his neck because she couldn’t really bring herself to look in his eyes. “…always go to you. You’re comforting. And I didn’t mean to insult you like that. That was uncalled for, but I promise I don’t really think of you that badly. But I just got incensed because the guy I-I… uh, care a lot for refused to believe what I had to say. Like you’re an idiot, but you’re _my_ idiot. Oh, but by that, I totally mean like _my_ idiot as my best friend idiot! You know?”

“I know.” Lance’s eyes had some kind of epiphany dancing in them, and Pidge felt her flush hot on the back of her neck. He looked like cogs were turning in his head. “Besides, we all say things we don’t really mean when we’re upset.”

Like her saying she’d give up on them for good. Which he was definitely thinking about. And he was also trying to figure out what exactly she’d meant when she said giving up on us for good. Because the next thing she’d done was kiss him and then make out with him and though most of him was confused, she had been right to realise that part of him was wondering if she liked him. But the other part still wondered if this was another one of those mixed signals.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you yesterday too,” Lance said. “For making you feel like I didn’t trust you. I was upset because I can’t just dismiss anything that has to do with you. Everything pertaining to you is important to me, Pidge.”

_I want to be your rock, Pidge. Someone you come to for everything no matter what._

Lance was trying to figure how to prove to Pidge that she could have enough confidence in him to trust him with everything. And it was touching to her that he cared so much for her. She cared so much for him too.

“Lance…” She took a slight step forward and loosely toyed with the cotton material of his tshirt. Jumping in head first was not at all easy when she hadn’t had a chance to properly think things through. “The truth is, that kiss yesterday. It maybe, sort of, kinda, wasn’t totally, fully meaningless to me. I… umm… it… it was…because I… umm…”

“Yeah?” Lance asked softly, stepping closer as well and sounding like he was holding his breath.

Pidge swallowed hard. She remembered his thought from earlier clear as day: what did she want from him? What would she be hoping to achieve if she said anything about the true meaning behind the kiss right now? Where would she want this to go right at this moment?

They were right on the cusp of a potentially dangerous fight. They couldn’t be distracted with a conversation that could potentially take a while if they wanted to properly address things. There was a lot to dissect and discuss and that couldn’t happen when it was this late and they needed to rest.

But then when?

Pidge licked her lips nervously and dropped the shirt from her grasp. “You wanna finish this talk tomorrow after we’re done with Commander Vhruk? Less to worry about, you know?”

Lance didn’t respond at first, but when Pidge looked up to meet his gaze, he looked pensive. Almost suspicious. “Huh. Any particular reason why?”

“We need sleep,” she said, and she was bummed that she couldn’t quite catch his thoughts at the moment. “And I would rather we talk when we’re both wide awake.”

“I’m definitely wide awake right now, Pidge.”

Her face flushed. “Just…! Let’s talk tomorrow, Lance.”

“Fine.” The look in his eyes was just a bit too mischievous, and entirely unsettling.

Then he tugged her gently by the front of her sleep shirt, bent down until their eyes were level, and pressed his lips to hers slowly. It was surprising, and her breath hitched when he cupped her face and leaned in closer to kiss her more fully. Before she could really react, he’d backed off, but her face burned up almost immediately and she couldn’t slow her pulse. Lance’s azure eyes were dancing when he pulled away, a brow quirked, and Pidge knew her lips were still partially puckered, but she could do nothing but stare up at him wide eyed and a little dazed. There’d been no pre-emptive thoughts to warn her what was about to happen so she’d gotten completely caught off guard.

“For the record… It maybe, sort of, kinda, wasn’t totally, fully meaningless to me either,” Lance said, tapping her lightly on the nose to get her attention again.

“Oh.”

_God… you’re so cute, Pidge…_

“So tomorrow?” he repeated with a knowing look on his face.

Then Lance backed out of her room with a two fingered salute before leaving her standing near her doorway like a lovesick, foolish teenager.


	8. Chapter 8

> **Meteor shower in daylight! Come to the roof!!!!!**
> 
> **(PS: PIDGE PUT DOWN YOUR ROBOT. I MEAN IT. I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN)**

Pidge set down the robot parts she was tinkering with and sat on her haunches, wiping her brow as she skimmed the group message Hunk had sent them all. She snorted and rolled her eyes at the postscript he’d added specifically for her. Pidge removed her work gloves and cut off the soldering iron and rose to her feet with a loud yawn and cracking joints. She’d been up since practically dawn working on bits and pieces of a mini robot she was creating only because she was a little too wired to spend her time lounging around doing nothing until the mission.

And surprisingly it wasn’t because of Lance.

(Well, not _fully_ anyway).

She didn’t really understand how Hunk could seem so calm when they were half a quintant from the meeting with Commander Vhruk, but she supposed one of Hunk’s best qualities was his ability to distract them with his cooking or other group activities when everyone got a little tense. She had no doubt they were all engaged in their own version of preparation before a big battle. Keith most likely hitting a punching bag, Shiro doing his consistent training regimen, Lance was probably listening to music and meditating on his bed, Allura likely taking a bubble bath, Coran… she had no idea. Coran probably did what Corans liked to do. And Hunk she’d thought would be baking, but this message told her otherwise.

But she was trying not to think about that kiss Lance had left her with last night. She wanted to sit in her room and hide out until it was time to change and head to the hangars, but Hunk would definitely message her directly if she didn’t make an appearance and everyone might get worried. Plus, she was curious about this whole meteor shower in daylight thing. That in and of itself was an astronomical anomaly and she refused to believe it until she saw it with her own eyes.

The green space puff settled on her shoulder inquisitively and she rubbed its head absentmindedly.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going…” she said to it.

Pidge did take her time getting ready though, gathering her thoughts and trying to figure out how best to behave around Lance when she saw him. Was she supposed to be all touchy-feely? Hug him? Act as usual and tease him? Act as if nothing happened last night? If she made the wrong decision, she could set them back several steps when they’d made so much progress.

Well, relative progress considering how bad their most recent fight was.

Pidge went to yellow’s hangar next to steal a rainbow coloured pop before she made her way to the lift to take her to the balcony at the roof of the castle. When she walked out, the other paladins and Allura and Coran were already situated on various parts of the balcony, watching the sky in awe. The fact that Allura was there as well probably meant that Shiro must have sent King Qylt back home to his castle since he was no longer a beacon for communication with the Galra.

Sure enough, the sky was alight with shimmering purple asteroids as they danced through the clear skies of the afternoon. She absolutely didn’t understand how that was possible, but it was gorgeous, and she filed the information of the beauty of Qiolea in her head as another potential attraction for a family vacation.

“Pidge!” Hunk exclaimed and all heads turned to her as she shuffled across the balcony to join the others by the railing. “Thought you weren’t going to come. I was about to text you again.”

Pidge licked her lips from the sip of the fruity drink she’d just had. “Took a little longer in the shower than I intended.”

Lance groaned in his mind, and her gaze dropped down to him where he was sitting criss-cross beside Hunk. He gave her a nonchalant—if not slightly subdued—wave and then turned away. And despite the fact that his mind was conjuring thoughts of her in a steamy shower, sighing as she worked a hand between her legs, his expression remained fairly blank.

Pidge frowned. Did that mean he wanted to play at this like he hadn’t kissed her as a parting gift and repeated her own words back to her? (Words that she’d _definitely_ meant in a romantic sense). She’d been trying to figure out the best way they should act around each other, but however she’d wanted him to act around her, this wasn’t it.

“I’m glad you left your robots for a bit to come chill with us.” Hunk gave her a sheepish smile. “I thought this might be a nice time for us to hang out before we all head out to our posts for the mission.”

_I hope you’re not still mad at me about the locking you in the kitchen thing._

She wasn’t. She smiled at Hunk so he wouldn’t think her frown was directed at him.

“Pick a spot and relax,” Allura said from where she was taking pictures of the sky. The mice kept trying to photobomb the images though, and it seemed she’d given up trying to take pictures without their cute faces in the frame. “We’ve earned this temporary break.”

“Right.”

Her initial decision would have been to sit right next to Lance, considering he had more than enough space beside him, but the way he’d greeted her made her think otherwise. Maybe it would be best to stand by Keith and Shiro where they were leaning against the railing and talking. Then again, their shoulders were touching and they kind of looked like they were in their own little world. She didn’t want to third wheel them, especially if Keith was trying to make a move or something. Her other option was standing near Coran who had a telescope out and was looking through it every few seconds to chart something on a holographic screen she definitely wanted a look at later.

As she approached the group, she started to see into Keith’s head and felt a wave of desire coming from him. There was some odd desire coming from someone else too, but Keith’s thoughts were making it hard to figure out who it was.

She didn’t so much as bat an eye when his daydream turned out to be some filthy desire where Shiro was eating Keith’s ass out against the railing of this very balcony while the meteor shower went on. Keith was a moaning mess, jerking back into Shiro’s mouth desperately, one hand clutching the railing so hard his knuckles were pasty white. The man dragged his tongue over Keith’s tight pucker, alternating between long, smooth licks and small, pressing circles. Keith trembled heavily, eyelids fluttering as he arched his back and wrapped a hand desperately around his own cock. Shiro was relentless as Keith trembled and begged him not to stop. The rest of the paladins were watching the two of them, unbothered, and somehow, it got Keith even more turned on.

And Pidge turned and redirected her path to Hunk and Lance.

Like hell she was about to stand near him and Shiro now.

That odd desire she’d felt from someone else filtered in her head again, stronger than before. It had started out as a little buzzing in the back of her mind, but then it drowned out Keith’s completely and belatedly, she realised it was from Lance.

And when his thoughts manifested, this time she _did_ blink in surprise.

In the daydream, she walked over to him, twiddling her thumbs in that way she hadn’t realised was an unconscious habit of hers when she was anxious.

“Lance, can I sit on your lap?” she asked him.

And he grinned up at her and held open his arms. The Pidge in his daydream returned the smile, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink, and then sat down in his inviting arms as he wrapped himself up around her.

That was pretty much the extent of the daydream—which surprised her, especially because there was nothing remotely filthy about it either—but it definitely left Pidge in a stupor.

Lance was wondering if she was sitting on his lap, if he could tuck her in his arms and rest his chin on her head. It was just something he wished could happen. When Pidge turned her gaze on him, he was looking wistfully up at the sky and chewing on his straw.

_Not that that will ever happen…_

While it was true that she wasn’t the kind to act like that necessarily, he thought it would never happen simply because he was certain Pidge wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. And yeah, maybe she wasn’t totally clear on things with Lance, but at the very least, she knew she wanted to be close to him, not just physically but emotionally as well.

Intimately close.

She hadn’t totally made up her mind or figured out her plan when her feet started carrying her over in his direction. She knew she wasn’t planning to be the first one to confess, but that didn’t mean she was going to let Lance develop doubts over where they might be headed. Pidge took a deep breath and let it out slowly and stomped right up to his side. Everyone went painstakingly quiet as they eyed her when she stopped right by Lance and stared him down.

He glanced slowly up at her, looking a bit confused. “Hey Pi—”

“Shove over.”

Lance’s brows drew down in trepidation.  “What? There’s plenty of space to sit here.”

_Shit, is she mad at me? I knew I should have acted less aloof!_

Hunk was pretending to watch the sky but she knew he had his rapt attention on them. The others were waiting to see what would unfold next, even if they weren’t looking at her. Well, except for Allura, whose eyes kept flitting over in interest. Pidge looked at a few strands of hair out of place on Lance’s head with a blush and took a deep, slow breath to gather some courage. She definitely wasn’t bold enough to ask him point blank to sit on his lap, and she wished the rest of their friends weren’t staring at them, but she had to do this.

Jump in head first.

“Yeah… but I want to sit there.” She pointed down to his lap to which Hunk snapped his gaze over, looking bug eyed and even Lance looked completely floored. There was a choked cough somewhere behind her but she ignored her racing heart and flaming cheeks and stood her ground. “So move your arms.”

_Huh?!_

Lance flipping out in his mind about his little fantasy coming true nearly made her crack up. But she stayed her laughter and gave him a small smile. When he still didn’t move, blinking up at her in total stupefaction, before she could lose her nerve, she separated his arms and plopped down in the little crevice he’d made from sitting criss cross. Lance went completely and utterly statue still.

Pidge leaned back into him, taking pleasure in his comforting scent and the fact that she could feel his heart pounding wildly in his chest. She really was just small enough that he could comfortably rest his head on top of hers if he wanted to but he seemed to be refusing to move for some reason. Lance’s cheeks were totally very _very_ red too (and it was so cute she thought she was going to die) but to her relief, Hunk said nothing and thankfully pretended like he wasn’t even seeing them.

_Awww how cute! But I swear if Lance pops a boner, I’m moving._

Allura let slip a little excited squeal and snapped a very obvious picture of them but Coran looked away with a blush as he stroked his moustache. Shiro also politely looked away—was he wiping away a fake tear?!—but Keith gave her a not so subtle wink that made her face flush even more with heat.

Why were they all like this? Could they get a life and stop being so invested in her love life?

“Pidge…?” Lance questioned quietly when the others finally stopped gushing over them and started watching the meteor shower again. His low voice in her ear nearly made her shiver.

She stared down at the fruit drink in her hand. “I just… I want to be close to you. Closer.”

And that was as much as she was going to say, barring a legitimate confession.

He didn’t respond at first. She thought he was going to ignore what she’d said completely. For a second, Pidge wondered if she’d misheard the daydream or something or if she’d been wrong about Lance liking her as she kept suspecting. Lance hadn’t moved one inch since she’d taken her seat in his lap, but the hand clutching his drink was so tight that she wondered if the glass was going to break. Taking a deep breath, she reasoned with herself that if he didn’t do anything in the next handful of ticks, she would play it off like a joke and hightail it out of his lap.

At least to save herself the humiliation of having been utterly and completely wrong about them.

But after a few beats of silence, Lance exhaled slowly and relaxed. And then he moved his arms and curled them around her waist, tucking her further into him and resting his chin on the crown of her head. Pidge’s heart leapt in her chest. And try as she might, she couldn’t stop her lips from pulling up into a soft smile as she rested her arms over his. She knew he was smiling too, and for a moment, everything felt as it should be.

Lance still hadn’t outright confessed to her yet. And Pidge still wasn’t totally ready to lay it all out on the table and talk about _them_ point blank. But this felt like a decent compromise for them both to show what the other meant to them.

_I always knew you’d fit perfectly in my arms._

Lance wasn’t even focusing on the meteor shower anymore. But hell, she couldn’t focus either. Not when he was giving off a seriously intense wave of affection and love and it was surrounding her like a warm blanket. Pidge made herself more comfortable, covering the top of his free hand with her own and linking their fingers together as they both finally looked up at the sky.

 

…

 

 _“Fifteen doboshes until your departure, Pidge,”_ Shiro reminded her over her lion’s screen. He looked a little concerned. _“Let me know if you need anything before you get going.”_

“Yessir, O captain, my captain!” She saluted seriously, forearm at the 45, wrist and hand straight, heels together, chest up, and chin down.

Shiro gave her a dry look. _“…so we’re doing **this** now?”_

“Yupp.” She grinned as she finished zipping up her bodysuit and looked around for her armour in her lion’s cockpit. “That’s your punishment for trying to give me a sex talk.”

 _“I-I was just trying to be a responsible guardian!”_ he spluttered, his cheeks flushing a faint shade of red. _“A-anyway, I’ve sent you the coordinates for your lion. Be careful, Pidge. And contact us immediately if you run into any trouble on the way.”_

“Roger that, Shiro.”

The screen disappeared and Pidge left the cockpit to her little living area in the back. In only a short amount of time, she’d launch and head off to the rendezvous point. Hunk and Lance would follow about five doboshes after she left. From the intel they’d gotten by the Blade of Marmora spies that had done recon, it was a fairly isolated planet used for storage by many other planets. The location of the exchange was a small clearing in a forested area on the dusty planet, not only surrounded by trees, but very large trees that blocked the view from the surrounding area.

Go figure…

Pidge couldn’t deny that she was nervous. She knew she had great back up in Hunk and Lance, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t nervewracking. After all, no one knew what Vhruk could be planning and she was basically walking in blind. The forest surrounding the meet point was perfect for hiding Lance and Hunk and their lions.

But that meant that it was also perfect for hiding any Galra enemies as well.

She just had to go in aware and keep her head in the game. If she was careless, things wouldn’t end well. She was somewhat scared of what could happen, especially since Vhruk had seemed unsettled which kind of freaked Pidge out in some ways, but as long as she did her job right, they’d be okay. All she had to do was exchange the weapon with Vhruk, use her bayard’s cord to trap the commander’s limbs, and then Hunk and Lance would help with the rest to subdue the enemy. It was a simple plan that in theory should work. She anticipated some struggle with Vhruk, but essentially, it would be three against one. Six, really, if they desperately needed the lions.

The plan had to work.

As Pidge located her armour, the door to her lion whirred open. At first she thought it might be Shiro coming to do some last minute fussing over her, but it was Lance, battle ready with a wary, anxious look on his face.

“Pidge, I need to talk to you,” Lance said without prelude, and she caught the wave of determination in his mind.

“How’d you get…?” Pidge frowned in confusion. “Green, did you let him in?”

Her lion informed her Lance had requested she let him in earnestly because he had something important to say to Pidge and far be it for her to stop a man on a possible romantic mission. Exasperated by Green’s meddling, Pidge rolled her eyes at the fact that her lion was watching in rapt attention because she was obviously living for the drama.

“Lance, whatever you have to say, can we wait until after we get this mission done?” He was buzzing with a weird antsy energy that was getting her a little antsy now too. And really, this close to the mission start, she should be focusing on getting zen and preparing for possible battle. “I have to leave soon. And you should be in your lion preparing to launch as well.”

“No.”

“ _No_?” She stopped midway from picking up her chest plate and straightened, wrinkling her nose at him. “What do you mean, _no_?”

_Shit. C’mon Lance. Just like you practiced in front of the mirror._

“I-I meant, no this can’t wait, Pidge,” Lance clarified quickly, chewing on his lower lip nervously. “I need to get this off my chest or I won’t be able to focus. I was going to wait until after the battle but then you sat in my lap earlier today and you said you wanted to be closer and I mean I-I tried to twist it in so many ways and figure out if you meant it in any other way but there’s really no other way to take that and I’m not gonna lie, it made me really happy and I told myself a long time ago that I wasn’t going to shy away from this—from _us_ —if you ever… Sorry, I’m rambling and that’s beside the point…”

_I need to know how serious you are…_

From the way his frazzled thoughts were curling around each other and spiking and getting mixed in with his frustration—which was at an all-time high—she could tell whatever he’d been practicing in his mirror was definitely not going the way he wanted it to.

“Lance, wh-what are you saying?” Pidge asked quietly, her heart thundering in her chest.

“I’m saying I don’t want to keep backing away from whatever this is anymore. Or putting it off.” Lance gestured between the two of them. But he wasn’t smiling at all and his expression was almost grave. “But not until you stop keeping secrets from me. You told me to wait for your explanation about why you ran which I’m fine with to an extent, but I know you’re hiding something else. And I was going to wait until this was over, but I need to know. Are you still dealing with allergic reactions from the weapon?”

Pidge swallowed hard, debating making something else up to lead him off the trail because she didn’t know how much he would push for answers.

She stared at the ground. “I…”

“Katie… just tell me the truth,” Lance said earnestly, taking purposeful steps forward and gently grasping her shoulders to get her attention back on him. Her gaze snapped back up to him. “If you couldn’t tell all of us during our debriefing, the least you could do is tell me now. Don’t you trust me?”

Pidge wanted to lie to him, but she’d lied enough and Lance looked like he wanted the truth and now and if she lied to him again, he was going to turn around and walk out of Green—away from her—without another word.

Pidge nodded slowly. “Not allergic reactions, but I am still dealing with the aftermath, I guess?”

“Did it do something life-threatening to your body?”

Pidge fiddled with the sleeve of her bodysuit. “Aside from the first night, no. I’m just more tired. Need more energy, I guess.”

And reading minds and all that jazz.

Lance looked annoyed and concerned at the same time. “Why’d you hide it from us then? Why’d you hide what the broken weapon was?”

_And then you told only Keith, but you never considered I could be there for you too?_

“Considering how you reacted when I couldn’t breathe and all, I thought you might freak out and overreact. You know? Kind of like you’ve done anytime I was going on a mission?” Pidge shrugged when Lance’s brows furrowed. “I didn’t want everyone to worry about me. I’m not trying to hurt you, but honestly it didn’t seem like such a big deal at the time. I didn’t know it would lead to all _this_.”

“Look, I admit I’ve let my emotions get the better of me sometimes, but it’s with good reason!” Lance retorted, squeezing her shoulders just a little more tightly. “You do some reckless things, Pidge, all for the sake of acquiring data or knowledge no matter what could happen and it terrifies us all. Keith once said you’d be a shoo-in for the Blade of Marmora, and I don’t doubt that’s true. That’s terrifying. So forgive me for being concerned with your nonchalance over you possibly getting maimed or killed!”

“Lance, you’ve put yourself in harm’s way and used your body as a shield for us so many more times and gotten much worse injuries than I have!” Pidge said emphatically, slightly unnerved by the fact that he couldn’t seem to realise that his comment was a bit hypocritical. “I don’t like it either—in fact I _hate_ seeing you so quiznaking hurt—but I’m not going to step all over your toes to keep you out of the path of danger. I respect you as a soldier and a comrade and I would put my life on the line for you over and over, but I also know you can take care of yourself no matter how much I might want to take care of you too.”

They both got quiet, staring at each other, contemplating what the other was saying.

“We can support each other without being overprotective, Lance,” Pidge added with a small smile, hoping it was enough to appease his current affliction. “I appreciate you looking out for me, but within reason. I’m not helpless.”

Part of the reason she wasn’t particularly eager to tell him about the mindreading. Well, that and the fact that who knew what would happen if she revealed to her friends that she’d had access to some of their innermost thoughts and fantasies.

That would be one awkward conversation.

Lance sighed in resignation, lifting his hands and cradling her jaw. “I’m sorry. I admit I probably have been overbearing in some ways but sometimes I can’t help it. My life wouldn’t be the same without you. You’re very special to me.”

The thought was coupled with his debilitating fear and fury when he’d run into the central command centre of the Qiolea castle, only to realise a Galra sentry was only a few ticks from possibly killing her. Once again, she felt the desperation and rage and agony that had been going through his mind. The way he hadn’t been able to stop imagining not getting there in time to stop the sentry from cutting her down.

 _I need you_.

Pidge’s heart skipped a beat her chest as she stared up at him. The swirl of yearning in his gaze was so intense, so strong, that she found herself lost in it. She had no idea how to respond because her own voice was caught in her throat. So Pidge did the only thing she could think to show him she felt the same way.

She leaned up and pressed her lips to his chastely.

When she pulled back, lingering the slightest bit, Lance’s cheeks were just the faintest shade of red. “Not that I mind, but what was that for?”

“Uhh… Good luck kiss. Y-you know, for me…” she stammered bashfully, feeling her cheeks start to warm from his unwavering gaze. “Since you’re special to me too.”

Lance brushed her cheek with his thumb, looking pensive. He seemed to have made up his mind about something because he leaned down, kissing her just a little more firmly than she had kissed him. It sort of surprised Pidge, and when he released her, this time she was left staring at him.

“I figured I should take a good luck kiss for myself too,” he said, sounding a little playful, though his expression was serious and eyes dark.

Nothing could stop how wildly her heart was racing right now. Especially because of how strong the waves of his affection were, made only more profound by his proximity. Even more than that, that familiar all-consuming _love_ she could recognise from Lance filled up every corner of his mind. But this time, she knew for certain it was directed at _her_.

Her brows lifted. “Lance—”

“Pidge, be careful out there,” he said in a low voice.

She licked her lips anxiously and nodded. “You too…”

Their eyes met again and Lance leaned down, reclaiming her mouth in a slow, pervasive kiss. His lips were soft against hers, and her skin prickled with goosebumps when he slid a hand into her hair. She hummed to herself, drowning in the kiss as she parted her lips with his. He moved one hand down to her waist, tugging her closer and Pidge loosely grasped his bodysuit at his torso, rising to her toes so she could match his urgency.

Lance’s apprehension over the mission crashed over her and he held her just a little more tightly, tilting his head and deepening the kiss. It was tender and sweet and warmth spread through her. He was thinking that this mission could be dangerous and that they had to make the best of whatever time they had.

She agreed.

They barely broke for air, but Pidge didn’t let him move far, tugging him closer and melding their lips together once again. His fingers laced in her hair, the other arm wrapping around the small of her back. He kissed her harder, stealing her breath, and Pidge sighed into his mouth, growing light-headed as heat steadily crawled through her body. Lance broke away briefly and tracked a path of slow, wet kisses along her jaw and down the column of her neck. Pidge’s breath hitched when he sucked on the sensitive part, right where her neck met her shoulder.

“Pidge,” Lance sighed, his voice muffled where he was nuzzling her. “What are we doing?”

“…I would have thought _that_ was obvious,” she murmured, distracted, tilting her head and trying to focus when Lance was nipping her with his teeth in a place she was entirely too sensitive. He laved the bite with his tongue and a shiver went down her back.

“Not really joking right now…” But she could feel his smile on her skin and she wanted to punch him because he damn well knew what he was doing to her and clearly enjoying it. “We should probably stop.”

_Or it’ll be hard to turn away from you._

“Maybe I don’t want to stop…” she breathed out.

Lance’s gaze snapped up to hers. His face was a little flushed and blue eyes blown wide at her admission, but she didn’t see any opposition in his own gaze. If anything, he looked like he was desperately hoping she wasn’t lying or playing around.

_Pidge, do you know what you’re saying?_

She answered him by cupping his jaw and pulling him down into a more dirty, heated kiss. She’d basically granted him permission, and it showed, because when Lance reacted, he wasn’t cautious anymore. The softer pressure and slow kiss was replaced by something bruising and carnal and heady. Gone were the gentle touches. His hands grasped at her, caressing her body and stroking her through her bodysuit. Pidge welcomed it, clinging to his shoulders and matched the fervency of his kiss with her own. Her head was cloudy and she couldn’t make much sense of anything but the fantastic feeling of his hands on her. Her own arousal mixed up with the waves of Lance’s and nearly overtook her. It was kind of a lot. She felt overstimulated and they hadn’t even really done anything.

Her back protested the slight sting when it hit the wall beside the bed, and barely a tick later, Lance was pinning her with his body, hands skimming down her sides, lowering and grasping her ass. Pidge let out a breathy whimper when he sucked on her lips, enthralled in his embrace. His tongue stroked hers and they twined in a seductive, slow dance that had her nearly begging for more.

Lance shifted and slipped a leg between her own and the brush of his thigh against her had her inhaling a little shakily. She looped her arms around his neck, grinding slowly on his thigh and instantly feeling the sparks of pleasure dance through her from the friction she didn’t realise she’d been craving. Lance groaned softly in her mouth when she let slip a needy little moan and tangled her fingers in his hair.

She couldn’t believe how wanton she sounded and how desperately she wanted him.

There was a voice in the back of her mind—Green?—telling her she was forgetting something important and that she needed to come back down to Earth and she vaguely registered that Lance was unzipping her bodysuit. And squeezing her ass. And sucking on her tongue which got her dizzy. She felt completely surrounded and weak kneed and leaned heavily on him to keep herself upright but Pidge’s mind could only focus on his growing erection pushing insistently against her hip and the rising pressure under her navel from her slow rutting on his thigh.

They were both breathing hard when they pulled apart for air and when she met Lance’s gaze, there was absolutely no mistaking his intention. Pidge’s breath hitched at the obscene look in his eyes as he dragged the zipper the rest of the way down. As he slowly peeled the suit off her shoulders. Down her arms and torso. She flushed the entire time because Lance was watching her like he wanted nothing more than to have his filthy way with her.

(Although she couldn’t deny she felt a small burst of pride at that).

“Pidge, are you sure you want this?” he breathed, his eyes glued to her breasts in her sport’s bra. “Right here, right now?”

She never got a chance to respond though.

Shiro’s voice suddenly came out on the intercom and she and Lance both froze. _“Two doboshes to launch, Pidge. Hunk and Lance, you’ve got seven.”_

 _Shit! I knew I forgot something_.

Same, Lance. Same.

Lance sighed heavily and rested his head on hers. Pidge closed her eyes as he held her, relishing in the warmth he exuded. Her nerves regarding the mission had completely disappeared, instead replaced by fluttering butterflies.

(And just a tad bit of amusement over Lance's calculations of whether Blue would forcibly eject him from the pilot seat if he tried to take care of himself while flying).

“Lance, I have to depart soon.”

_Is it bad that I don’t want to let you go?_

She didn’t want to let him go either, but gradually, he backed away from her though his hand trailed down her arm until he had only her fingers clasped in his hand. The fact that his lips were a little plush and slightly swollen almost made her laugh.

“We’ll finish our talk once all this is over, okay?” Pidge promised him.

“And don’t forget you owe me a rematch,” Lance responded, a slight smirk on his lips, but she knew his mirth was overshadowed by his unease. “Winner takes all.”

She rose a brow. “In other words, I’ll take all.”

“We’ll see.”

They searched each other’s gazes for several more ticks until Pidge’s armour tech watch beeped with an alert for one dobosh left. With a final sigh, Lance gently rubbed her knuckles and then let her hand go to leave her lion. She watched him go, her heart pounding in her chest as he looked over his shoulder and supplied her with one last little good luck smile before walking out so he could head out of her lion.

Pidge’s mind was on autopilot as she dressed herself and quickly tugged on the rest of her armour and headed to Green’s cockpit. Once Green notified her that Lance was a safe distance away from the hangar, they powered up and launched.

She still had Lance on the brain and her heart was pounding and her mind was replaying how soft his lips were against hers and how much she liked being in his arms and how much more intense kissing him was than it’d ever been with her ex (and how much she was wishing they could go all the way), but she pushed it aside for the time being.

It was time to focus.

But once they took care of this threat, she and Lance would finally talk things out and figure themselves out for good.

 

…

 

Pidge had definitely gotten her emotions in check by the time she’d reached the rendezvous point. The varga of flying had helped her chill out and get in the zone.

She’d parked Green in a safe clearing and done a quick scan of the planet for any Galra lifeforms lying in wait. To her surprise, aside from some sentries near a ship—which Hunk and Lance had discreetly dispatched of—the only presence was Commander Vhruk, but that wasn’t so much a relief as something that ratcheted up her apprehension. Commander Vhruk had come alone. That meant to an extent, she had to be that confident in her capabilities, because Pidge didn’t believe for a second that the woman would trust them to follow the exchange to a T. There was also a good chance that maybe she really didn’t have that large of a fleet.

Once Hunk and Lance had touched down to their designated positions in the forest and Pidge had confirmed they were ready lying in wait, she finally headed out of the concealing forest to the clearing where Vhruk was waiting for the exchange.

The commander was a helluva lot more imposing in person than she had been through the screen. She was dressed in a general Galra empire uniform for commanders, standing straight-backed, her eyes following Pidge as she approached. Pidge swallowed hard, maintaining her steady walk as she headed closer. But the giant purple she-cat was smirking and giving off this vibe of success that made Pidge a little anxious.

“So you’re the one they decided to go with, huh?” Vhruk remarked from across the clearing.

“That’s right,” Pidge called out. She held up the fake replica of the weapon in the glass jar using the metal tongs. “And I have the weapon, so you better uphold your end of the bargain.”

She walked a few more steps and then stopped so there was still a safe enough distance of about five steps between them should Vhruk decide she actually wanted to pursue a more violent route.

 _“Ready whenever you are, Pidge,”_ Hunk said over their comm unit.

Lance and Hunk were waiting for Pidge to make the switch. Once the vial was in Vhruk’s possession, she needed to incapacitate her with her bayard long enough for Lance and Hunk to get the base of the quintessence cell up and running so they could trap her. Some Olkari engineers had fashioned the portable prison, but the set up still took a lag of a few ticks, so as long as Pidge could keep Vhruk from moving in the time it took the boys to get it ready, they would be fine. The goal was to take her back to the Blade of Marmora base to get more information on the insurgents.

“Do you now?” The commander chuckled, her eyes sparking with something dangerous as she focused her gaze on the fake weapon Pidge was holding. “We’ll see.”

Pidge wondered what Commander Vhruk was talking about and was about to ask her as such when all of a sudden, she felt pressure steadily growing in her head as if someone had their hands on her skull and was squeezing harder and harder. Her brows furrowed as a high pitched ringing sound slowly started to rise in pitch and intensity. Pidge winced and brought a hand to her temple, leaning over a bit and trying to get past the weird feeling in her head.

 _“Pidge? Pidge, why are you hesitating so long?”_ She heard Lance ask her through her helmet’s earpiece.

She could barely hear the question though because the pressure in her head turned into a heavy throbbing gripping her head. She winced and rubbed her temple, but her body was slow and sluggish and her limbs felt like they weren’t responding the way they should.

What the hell was going on?

_See, I wouldn’t be very smart if I didn’t have a means to verify the existence of the weapon, little paladin. So I activated it. I’m not surprised it’s not in the vial. But your reaction is very intriguing._

Pidge dragged her gaze up slowly to the Galra commander in confusion and she pointed to the weird collar Pidge hadn’t noticed she was wearing around her neck. The stone in the centre was glowing a hot pink and pulsing with light. Vhruk’s gruff, terrifying voice in her head drowned out all other thoughts and Pidge found that it rattled around in her mind, impossible to leave and she couldn’t understand why she was growing dazed.

Like she was locked inside her own body or head.

“H-how…?” Pidge struggled to say, forcing her lips to move just as her body stopped responding to her.

 _“We’re ready whenever you are, Pidge,”_ Hunk said this time, but she couldn’t respond.

Lance growled under his breath. _“Hunk, I think something’s wrong.”_

_I don’t know what that bumbling idiot king told you about the weapon, but one thing is clear: you ingested my smog. And now I have a puppet to experiment with on the potency of my weapon. So thank you for that._

Vhruk wasn’t opening her mouth or speaking at all, but Pidge knew she was addressing her directly, not just thinking those thoughts. Step by step, the bulbous Galra approached Pidge until she was leaning down in front of her. Commander Vhruk grasped her chin under the helmet with long claws that just barely pressed into her skin hard enough to draw blood. The closer Vhruk had gotten, the stronger the pressure in her head had become and by the time they were face to face, Pidge felt like her head might explode from how painful the headache pounding in her head was. And yet, she couldn’t even wince or make a noise indicating her pain. She couldn’t do anything.

“Pidge!”

_I told you all if you tried anything funny, if you dared defy my terms for the exchange, there would be consequences. For your insubordination and attempts at trickery, you will all die now. And Qiolea? We’ll annihilate the planet like our wonderful emperor did Altea._

Vaguely, Pidge could hear someone shouting at her to move, but she couldn’t make out the muffled voice. It was drowned out by the ringing in her head. She was trapped in her own head, Vhruk’s voice reverberating deeply with an echo that left her in a bind.

Pidge was being controlled.

She just knew it, and try as she might, she couldn’t break the hold.

Harsh, despicable laughter filled her head as Vhruk grinned down maliciously at her.

_Now, darling little Terran. I want you to use that weapon of yours and start with that furious blue boy running over here. Kill him. You have my full permission to be as gruesome as possible. And when you’re done with him, the yellow one hiding in the trees is next._

To Pidge’s horror, she dropped the fake vial on the terrain and her hand drifted immediately to her bayard. She turned around slowly, watching as Lance ran towards her, his own activated into the blaster to help out if he needed to.

“Pidge, get away from her!”

She wanted to warn him not to approach, to tell him that he needed to get away and now, but her mouth was frozen stiff. The pain in her head grew even more intense the more she tried to fight it, but she couldn’t break free. She felt helpless and the stinging of tears behind her eyes was threatening to spill over onto her eyelids.

And yet, the only thing she could do was obey the command and launch her bayard at him with full intentions to annihilate him. Lance barely managed to avoid the strike in shock, but she pivoted back on her heel to yank her bayard towards her and it narrowly caught his neck as it flew by and sliced him. His eyes went wide in surprise, but she didn’t give him a chance to recover before she was after him again, using kicks and punches to catch him off guard or get him off balance while aiming for vitals with her bayard.

_“Lance?! What the hell is Pidge doing?”_

Vhruk was cackling in the background, and Pidge really did feel the tears start building as Lance kept shouting at her, urging her to stop and barely blocking with his blaster. She whirled around and wheel kicked his gun right out of his hands and in an effort to stop her counter kick, he missed her weapon coming and it almost struck his neck before Lance gasped and stumbled back quickly out of the way.

Any slower and she would have decapitated him.

“Holy shit, Pidge! Get it together!”

Pidge swung her feet along the ground and knocked Lance over onto his ass. She jumped down and straddled his torso to keep him from moving and tried to stab him in the neck with her activated bayard. Lance held on to her wrists, grunting and straining to keep her from impaling him as gravity slowly brought her bayard closer. At the last second, he rolled sideways and her hands whizzed past his arm instead, tearing a gash in his skin and electrocuting him briefly. Lance cried out in pain, unconsciously kicking her hard away from him.

She tumbled along on the dusty terrain and then rose to her feet in complete disregard of the ache in her limbs and her stomach feeling like it’d gotten punched in. When Lance stood up, breathing hard and staring at her and realised what he’d done, his expression turned helpless and remorseful and so disgusted in himself that Pidge pounded on the wall in her head, trying to force herself to tell him it wasn’t his fault. But the pressure in her head only increased until she could barely breathe right.

It was horrifying.

She could see everything and feel everything, but no matter how hard she commanded her body to stop, it wouldn’t. She couldn’t sense Green or anyone else’s vibes or emotions; all she felt was Vhruk as if the she-cat had occupied her body. Even worse, Pidge was relentlessly fighting Lance, even when she landed badly and rolled her ankle. A punch she threw connected with his ribs and he buckled forward with a pained wheeze, only recovering just in time to jump out of the way when she tried to skewer him with her bayard.

Her mind was focused and zoned in on only one thing: killing Lance.

And she desperately didn’t want to.

“ _Pidge! Why are you attacking Lance?!”_

“I think Vhruk did something to her, Hunk! We need to stop her!” Lance shouted, grappling with her wrist and trying to avoid her knees. “Pidge, listen to me! Snap out of it!”

_I’m curious what is making this boy go through such lengths to try to help you? If he knocks you out, the struggle would be over, correct?_

Pidge tried to yell at Lance to hit her back, to knock her out or something and put her in the quintessence prison so she couldn’t be used anymore. But even though she wanted to tell him what was happening, her face remained cold and emotionless and her attacks neverending.

She charged up her bayard again with the intention of electrocuting Lance and he barely avoided her dropping it towards his foot, jumping back just in time. Pidge pulled it up from the ground by the cord, swinging it around in a faster circle and then lashing it out at him. He tucked and rolled when she tried to discharge it at him again, and it deflected off his boot. Pidge was shaking, tears in her eyes because she really couldn’t do anything about it and Lance looked like he was wrecked and she was getting closer and closer to hitting him each time and she didn’t want to hurt him, but she _knew_ Lance and he was refusing to incapacitate her, even though she was trying to end his life.

Vhruk’s vile laughter echoed in her head, and Pidge grit her teeth, her mind on fire as she tried to fight the occupation.

_Is he your lover, perhaps? This is even more amusing than I originally intended._

When Pidge ran back towards him, Lance kicked a chunk of the planet’s dust in her face, and Pidge coughed, vision briefly clouded, though she still could not break the possession. When the air cleared, she only just realised Lance had gotten behind her until he snaked both arms under her armpits and restrained her. She struggled against his hold, aiming to get free, but he only tightened his grip and thankfully, she couldn’t move.

 _“Lance! I think Pidge is being controlled by Vhruk! Vhruk has to maintain concentration and focus on Pidge. If you distract her long enough, I can get to her,”_ Hunk said rapidly. _“It’ll be a small window, and I’m not certain if we’ll end up controlled either, but we have to try.”_

“Pidge, listen to me! You can fight this, okay?!” Lance inhaled sharply when she slammed and dug her heel on top of his foot and despite stumbling a little backward, he still didn’t let her go. “Leave her alone, Vhruk! Just fight me man to man! There’s no reason to resort to this!”

What the hell did he think he was doing?!

_Your loverboy would do anything to protect you. Such a shame he’ll have to die by your own hand._

Vhruk laughed long and hard at Lance’s words. “None of you are leaving this planet anyway. Makes no difference whether I do it or I make your little girlfriend do it. Or maybe… I should just make her stab herself in the heart while you watch.”

Lance stiffened, stopping his struggle and though distant and barely a probe at the back of her mind, Pidge felt it. It was a fury so violently intense that for a moment, she felt her mind clear. Pidge gasped, but her mind was overtaken once again, and she ripped herself out of his loosened hold, charging up her bayard as she tried to take him out. He avoided the strike, but Lance’s eyes were on something behind Vhruk though.

“Hunk, now!”

Pidge heard Hunk’s battle cry, and she hadn’t realised he’d managed to sneak up on Vhruk the whole time Lance was distracting her. Hunk charged at her, crashing right into her back and knocking them both over to the ground. Commander Vhruk cursed loudly as she grappled with Hunk and suddenly, the heavy pressure in Pidge’s head cleared a bit and she could move again. Hunk must have managed to mess up the connection to the hypnosis if even a little bit.

“Lance!” Pidge yelled, aborting her attack halfway through. “Lance, it’s the coll—”

The pressure returned sharply and she couldn’t even cry out from the agonising pain in her head. Lance seemed to have realised she was losing it, because before she could try to attack him yet again, he tackled her to the ground and wrestled her to submission, pinning her arms and restraining her legs with his knees. Hunk must have gotten the upperhand again somehow because Pidge felt her mind clear slightly.

“Lance, a little help here please!” Hunk shouted in the near distance. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold her off!”

“It’s the collar,” Pidge croaked into the headset, her eyes closed as she tried to focus on the desperate fear and horror rolling off of Lance. The more she kept on it, the less strong the pressure in her head was. Her head felt like it was splitting open, warring between her body’s desire to follow the orders and her own refusal to kill him. “I need to get the collar. Lance, let go!”

“She has you under some sort of spell, Pidge. No!” Lance held her down more tightly when she nearly got her wrists free. “I won’t let you do this! She’ll try to kill you!”

“You don’t have a choice!” she shouted. “Hunk needs our help and you can’t fight me _and_ Vhruk at the same—”

The sharp pain in her head returned, and this time Lance didn’t have a chance to pay attention fast enough to figure it out. She snapped her head up and crashed her helmet right against his. Pidge didn’t think he got hurt from it too bad, but the surprise was enough to have him recoil in confusion and that was all the opening she needed. Pidge freed her wrist and caught him right under the chin, _hard_. Pidge felt her wrist crack from the blow—or had that been his chin?—and yet, her body completely ignored the dull throbbing rising up her arm as she got to her feet. It was like it didn’t even matter and yet her body could still feel the damage plain as day. The impact stunned Lance who looked dazed and out of sorts and he stumbled back on his ass just in time for Pidge to kick him across the helmet hard enough to knock him down. Lance didn’t move. Pidge slowly lifted her bayard, charging it up as everything in her body screamed to stop attacking him before she actually killed him, but she wouldn’t listen.

Lance was going to die.

And it would be her fault.

Tears pooled in her eyes and she watched through a blurry vision as Lance groaned in pain, just barely turning onto his side and blearily glancing up, gaze unfocused and hazy. When he saw Pidge, he stared up at her, eyes full of grief and sorrow. There was something else in there too. Something she’d seen in his eyes too many times to count when he looked at her. Something warm and sweet that she could feel the distant pulse of in her head.

Lance was saying goodbye.

She just knew it.

Pidge let out a choked sob, fighting her hand with every ounce of her being and failing. Her head was screaming in agony, her heartbeat loud in her ears and vision swimming from the torture it was to try to stop herself. One way or another, the bayard was coming down and this time, she couldn’t lower the strength of the electricity.

_Enough! Finish him! Now!_

“Pidge, I’m so so so sorry, but I’m not letting you do this!” Hunk called out in concern, activating his bayard and shooting Pidge in the back. She lurched forward as the burn from the blast exploded on her back and ate a mouthful of dirt when she hit the ground.

But he stopped fighting Vhruk, and that was that.

Vhruk got the upperhand, lifting Hunk way above her head, ready to toss him. But at the last second, he reached out blindly, trying to grasp at anything and managed to catch hold of the collar.

Three things happened at once: there was a loud snap that echoed through the air, Hunk was catapulted across the clearing and landed harshly on his side with a sickening thud, and Pidge’s mind instantly cleared, the pressure disappearing completely as she was instead filled yet again with Lance’s vivid emotion and anguish. She could also feel Hunk’s debilitating fears and how much pain his body had suffered.

It took a few ticks for her to make sense of her environment and she felt a little disoriented, but when she figured out Hunk had succeeded, Pidge wasted no time. Despite her entire body wanting her to sit down and rest, she spun on her heel and went after Vhruk, who had been bellowing in fury over the collar being broken.

“I’ll kill you all!”

Adrenaline pounded through Pidge’s body as they met halfway, trading blows and aiming to subdue the other. She managed to slice at Vhruk’s face and arms, but the woman was quick like a viper, able to avoid any attacks that could do serious damage and retaliate just as harshly and just as quickly. For being so large, she was much more agile than Pidge had expected.

A fist connected with Pidge’s solar plexus and knocked the wind out of her. The hard hit had her reeling and nearly falling on her ass, but Pidge found her footing. She feigned and parried, narrowly avoiding a kick that whizzed past her head. She would have expected Vhruk to use a weapon by now, but the woman seemed to prefer good old fashioned bare knuckle boxing. Pidge was decent enough in hand to hand combat under normal circumstances that she didn’t think she would get obliterated in this fight.

But these weren’t normal circumstances.

Pidge felt sluggish and was lacking energy and she still had that headache from earlier from how hard she’d been pushing to break the control. Her brain was working too slowly and everything was dragging just a little bit. And two Vhruk’s kept sliding in and out of focus.

Something was off.

Pidge was slowing down.

And that was what got her.

Pidge sensed she’d fucked up when Vhruk actually followed her bayard hand’s movement and caught her damaged wrist before she could connect the strike. Pidge breath stopped for just a moment as Vhruk mercilessly crushed it in her grip. The deafening crunch went barely noticed by Pidge over the roaring electric pain that seared her arm. She was vaguely aware of someone shouting her name— _Katie_ —over her own shrieks, but she could barely focus. Vhruk yanked her closer until they were face to face, glaring down at Pidge with so much malice in her gaze, that Pidge knew there was no getting out of this.

“You won’t live to see another day.”

And in one smooth move, she drove a bayonet right through Pidge. The short spasm of sudden pain grew exponentially worse, building and rising in intensity until she couldn’t do much but stare in shock at the sharp teeth of the grinning Galra she-cat. Unfocused spots danced in her vision and when she coughed, blood dribbled out of her lips and onto her chest plate. She wheezed, her throat seizing despite every part of her wanting to scream out loud.

Damn.

This was not how she expected this to go.

She stared down at her wound with hazy eyes. The only thing holding her up right now was the sword. That high pitched ringing was back in her ears, and even breathing wasn’t easy to do. She rasped for a few breaths, but air was barely reaching her lungs. Had Vhruk gotten her lung? This was the end, wasn’t it? And to think, this whole time she’d been making jokes that she would die of heartbreak over Lance. Instead, she would be tasting metallic, rusty blood, struggling to breathe, and impaled by a sword she should have seen coming. She was probably a goner, but there was no way she would let this woman go. At the very least, she could protect her friends and take Vhruk down with her.

“ _Katie_!”

Lance’s strangled cry reached her ears and she wished she could respond, wished that she could do anything, but she stood where she was, swaying on her feet.

“ _Pidge_!”

“Not another step. Either of you! I mean it.” Vhruk barked, jerking the bayonet a bit and Pidge shuddered with a pained whimper. “Or I’ll cut her clean in half.”

“…Not happening,” Pidge whispered.

Vhruk looked down at her and chuckled cruelly. “So you are still alive. But you won’t be for long.”

Pushing past the all-encompassing pain in her body, Pidge grasped Vhruk’s wrist that was holding the sword so she couldn’t pull away. She took the blade of her bayard and set it against Vhruk’s neck, not even bothering to try to cut her. Her bayard cord was tangled between them, and Vhruk looked at her like she didn’t understand what she was trying to do.

Good.  

“I would have thought you would try a little harder than this, little paladin. I’m disappointed. Is that all you have left?”

“I can control… voltage to enact… my desired effect,” she said, looking up at Vhruk through her spotted gaze and laughing a bit. She didn’t have much energy left. “Thing is, I’ve been too chicken… to use the full charge but… today’s your lucky day.”

Pidge coughed again and a splatter of blood landed on Commander Vhruk’s uniform.

“We’re tied up completely. You’ll get electrocuted too.”

“Likely,” she responded slowly with fake nonchalance, and for a brief second, Vhruk’s expression turned apprehensive. “But that’s ‘kay… ‘cuz we’ll stop you.”

“I’ll cut you in half well before that!”

“ _Pidge_ , _no_!”

Footsteps pounded towards them.

“Readysetgo…”

And Pidge released the maximum voltage of her bayard just as Vhruk tried to move the sword. The electricity went off hard and fast like some bomb. The electrocution tore through her body too and Pidge cried out as her muscles contracted painfully, stiffening so much it felt like she was going to snap into pieces. She could hear Vhruk release a bloodcurdling scream and it smelled like burning flesh and it was entirely too hot and every nerve in Pidge’s body was on fire, sending immense pain through her entire body.

She couldn’t hold it for very long. Her body gave in and she dropped her arms. Her bayard tumbled out of her hand to the ground and she slumped forward, watching as smoke rose around them. Commander Vhruk’s fur was burned and patchy in places, her skin seared off in others and breathing far too stilted and ragged. Her yellow eyes were also glazed over and hazy.

“I… w-win…” Pidge choked out.

“If you think this… is the only place we have this weapon… or these collars… you’ve got another thing coming,” Vhruk rasped, her gaze going out of focus as she swayed on her feet. “Galra empire… will rise again. And when we do… every one… of you paladins… publically executed… in our triumph. Vrepit Sa forever…”

Then eyes rolling to the back of her head, Commander Vhruk let go of the bayonet and fell backwards. Pidge chuckled once to herself before her own body could no longer stay upright. She collapsed, and Lance slid across the ground just in time to catch her back, his eyes wide and glassy as he cradled her to him.

“No no no no no no! Pidge, _no_!” Lance desperately slapped at her cheek until she stared up at him. She’d never seen him look this scared before. “What the fuck were you thinking?!”

_Stay with me!_

“…ance. I needa confess. I… lied,” she whispered.

Hunk crouched beside them, horror on his face and sniffling as his eyes pooled with tears. “I’m trying to get in touch with Shiro or Keith right now!”

“Lied about what?” Lance said softly, leaning down and resting his forehead against hers as he stroked her cheek. She hummed and tried to close her eyes. “Stay with me, Pidge. Keep talking! What was the lie?”

“Lie? Oh yeah… kiss… meant something… meant a lot…” She smiled a bit through the pain, but then whimpered in agony as she started to shake. “’m pretty sure… love you.”

“ _Hunk_!” Lance said desperately, smoothing a hand through her hair. “She’s not doing well! Contact any one of our allies! There must be someone here nearby who we can go to! We need to get her help immediately!”

Lance was crying. His tears were dripping down on her face, and it broke her heart and she started crying too. Especially because his distress and anguish was filling up her head. He was so terrified. He kept thinking she wouldn’t make it, and she couldn’t handle his pain. Why had she waited so long to tell him how much she loved him?

“…now you know… before…”

“Pidge! You are not going to die, dammit! Stay awake and tell me again when we’re safe in the castle.” Lance barked at her, slapping her cheek again when she grunted in disinterest. She was so damn tired. She was way too sleepy, and she felt like she was being dragged to unconsciousness and she kind of just wanted to let it happen. “We were going to talk, remember? We can talk about everything about me and you, but you have to stay awake!”

_Goddammit! I love you too now stay awake!_

“Lance! I found… in the… two… to prepare…”

But Pidge missed most of what Hunk said because she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore and her head was blanking.

And everything went dark.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so tbh i was lazy af writing parts of this, but writer’s block is so ugly and i got sick of being stuck on this chapter ~~for two months TT__TT~~ AND I TRIED OKAY

_"…stabilised now… needs… wake up.”_

Pidge winced as she roused, a pressure in her head softening the more conscious she grew of her environment and surroundings. It felt like a fog was lifting from her head as she woke up. The light pounding was still present, but it didn’t hurt and even better, was subsiding with each passing tick.

Her brows furrowed as she cracked open her eyes to a cold, dimly lit room with a drab grey ceiling. It looked oddly familiar. Hadn’t she already woken up to something like this before? Pidge groaned as she tried to recall the previous events. She couldn’t really remember the last thing that had happened and strained to think.

There’d been the trip to the planet to exchange the weapon with Commander Vhruk. Oh yeah, and that horrible fight. Hunk getting thrown like a ragdoll. Pidge almost killing Lance. Almost _getting_ killed by Vhruk.

Electrocuting them both.

Pidge could definitely remember the pain vividly from that, and she shuddered, thinking about the way it had made her body feel. She’d already been in substantial pain and shock from being impaled, but every nerve had pretty much been set on fire. The electricity had felt like her entire body was being ripped to shreds, muscles torn apart from the shock. She could still kind of hear the crackling ringing in her head. (And Vhruk’s horrifying screams). But it didn’t seem like she’d been torn into pieces or anything and she was _alive_ so that was something.

But everything after that was a blur.

She knew with certainty that Lance had definitely been crying, and she believed she’d been slapped in the face or something but that was about it as far as the aftermath went that she could recall.

Speaking of Lance… where was he? And where was Hunk?

And now that she noticed it, why in the fuck was she in her underwear?

“The Green Paladin is awake, master,” a voice beside her said.

Pidge exhaled slowly, turning her head and surprised to see an Olkari nurse checking her vital signs with some hovering creature that was scanning her body. Pidge realised she was in what seemed to be a med bay on a metal cot. By all means, it should have been hard on her back and uncomfortable, but she felt cosy. Almost as if it was pillow soft despite its looks.

Absentmindedly, Pidge’s hand went to her upper abdomen, almost expecting to feel a gaping hole there or bandages, but the skin was smooth like she’d never gotten stabbed in the gut in the first place. Alarmed, Pidge tried to sit up to look at it, but pain shot through her body and she fell back, wheezing as a shudder ran down her back. Her crushed wrist was also bandaged up completely, set in a splint so she couldn’t move it. It didn’t feel stable in the least, but Pidge was glad it was restrained so tightly she couldn’t even feel it because she was certain the pain would knock her out.

“If this is the afterlife, I want my money back…” she moaned, closing her eyes briefly and taking a few slow breaths until the throbbing in her body subsided.

“Careful, young paladin,” Ryner said, heading over to the med table with warmth in her gaze. “You have not yet been healed.”

The all-encompassing relief she felt at seeing a familiar face made Pidge sag into herself, a relieved smile on her face. If Ryner was there, that meant she was on Olkarion, safe and sound. She was in good hands.

“Wh-what happened?” Pidge croaked, clearing her throat when it came out hoarse. “How much time has passed?”

“If you are referring to your near fatal fight with that commander, about two varga. Your fellow paladins brought you here with barely any life to you. I was quite worried,” Rynar explained, coming to a stop next to her nurse assistant and peering at the information on the hovering mechanism herself. “We managed to stabilise you with one of these.”

Ryner held up a thin little blue film that expanded and retracted as she spread apart her thumb and fore finger.

“What’s that?” Pidge shifted her body with the help of the assistant, sitting up slowly though the discomfort made her want to cry. Her legs hung off the side of the table, and looking around, she noticed her armour and undersuit folded up neatly in a chair. “And why do I still feel like I’ve been impaled?”

Ryner frowned in concern as she traced her hand over Pidge’s injury site, right underneath the band of her sports bra. “It’s a creation of ours. It stabilises open wounds by creating a temporary illusion to trick the body into believing it has healed. But if you are starting to feel pain, that means you have a varga before it will wear off entirely and we will need to get you healed in your Castle before that point. I fear your body may reject the use of another illusion.”

Pidge’s brows furrowed when she realised none of the others were around. “Do you know where everyone is or if the castle is nearby?”

“The yellow paladin was trying to get into contact with the others when they brought you here.” Ryner continued her gentle ministrations on her abdomen, watching Pidge carefully to take note of the changes in her expression. “It seemed your communicators were jammed, so he went to go get the rest of your team. That was about a varga ago. I’m not sure when they will arrive.”

She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It kind of felt like she’d gotten abandoned in some ways, no matter how dramatic it sounded.

But she wanted to see Lance.

After almost killing him, she really felt like she had to talk to him, make sure they were okay. Vhruk had gotten in her head because of the weapon and Pidge had almost lost him by her own fault. She couldn’t help but feel like if she’d told all the others about what was going on, maybe this could have been avoided.

She’d tell them when they all arrived. Tell them what the weapon had _actually_ done to her.

“…And the commander?”

“Badly injured, but alive as well. In the custody of the Blade of Marmora now. The blue paladin transported her.” Ryner smiled. “You all saved this quadrant of space.”

It didn’t feel like a victory. In fact, it felt more like winning a battle over winning a war. And Vhruk’s last statements made a shiver run down Pidge’s back. She’d barely been able to focus and most everything after the battle was a complete blur, but Pidge could remember those chilling words forever.

Vhruk had said there were more collars. More of that smog.

Which meant there were way more insurgent groups the paladins would need to find.

“That’s my line, Ryner. Seriously. Thank you.” Pidge leaned forward and hugged her, genuinely grateful for the Olkari scientist. She would always be one of her favourite people in space. “You saved my life. I can’t thank you enough.”

Ryner’s look of surprise melted into a warm smile as she returned Pidge’s embrace. “You’ve saved ours too many times to count. It’s the least I could do for you. I’m glad your life was not lost, young paladin.”

When she pulled back, Ryner called her assistant over again. The nurse handed the old woman a small box that contained a round capsule that looked like a gumball.

“This is also for you once you recover.” Ryner explained, showing the capsule in the case to Pidge. “The yellow paladin informed me it was imperative for you to have it in the near future. You swallow it and once it enters your bloodstream, the outer capsule will dissolve and block certain receptors in your human body.”

“What exactly is this?” Pidge’s face scrunched in confusion. “Pain killer?”

Ryner blinked. “My apologies. I suppose it might not be familiar to you. It is an Olkari contraceptive to prevent conception. I altered the composition to adapt to a human body based off of what the yellow paladin requested of me. Once it has reached its target location in your body, it will function perfectly for an entire movement.”

“Umm, not to be rude,” Pidge cleared her throat, her cheeks flaming up immediately, “but why would you think I would need this now?”

And why in the hell did Hunk ask Ryner to make something so embarrassing like this?!

“I could not help but notice the way the blue paladin refused to let go of your hand even while we attempted to keep you stable.” She cleared her throat politely. “I cannot speak for your lover, but most times when a loved one is nearly taken from someone, they likely want to _feel_ their presence to confirm they are alive. The yellow paladin seemed to agree.”

She was going to kill Hunk.

“He’s not my lover!”

“You are not in a relationship?”

“I-I mean, kind of? But we— we haven’t done anything like…” But they’d been about to, hadn’t they? Twice now. She didn’t think it possible, but her entire neck and upper chest went hot too. “Look, the point is, I won’t be needing anything like that anytime soon.”

“Are you sure, young paladin? The throes of passion may strike when least expected and it is wise to be prepared.”

This was officially the _worst_ conversation ever.

It was even worse than that shite talk with Shiro, especially because Ryner was way advanced in years and it was like talking to a grandmother about sex.

Pidge opened her mouth to respond when the doors of the room banged open. All three of them jumped in surprise, eyes widening when they saw Lance, out of breath and his hair completely dishevelled. He had an ugly purple bruise on his chin where she’d clipped him, but aside from that and how frazzled he seemed, he was okay. His brows skipped up when he zoned in on her, something pained and relieved passing through his face before he frowned. And then he approached her with purpose.

Pidge started to lift her hand to wave, but he grabbed her face and pressed his mouth to hers in a deep, fiery kiss. She gasped softly, her eyes wide in shock and heart igniting in her chest, but Lance seemed undeterred, a hand sinking into her hair as he made it clear to her just how urgent and desperate he’d been the whole time she slept.

It was dizzying.

“Oh my…” Ryner chortled as both she and the assistant turned away to give them some privacy.

Pidge pushed against Lance’s shoulders with a red face, inhaling sharply when he finally pulled away, his eyes dark and trained on her mouth. She took in some shallow breaths, staring up at him a little bashfully from the intensity of his gaze.  

“Lance… I—”

He leaned down and reclaimed her mouth, softer this time, but just as pervasive as his arm wrapped around her back and his hand curled in her hair as if he was savouring the fact that she was alive right now. He had her partially dipped and Pidge melted into the kiss, arms looped around his neck as she gave in. She let out a little whimper, intoxicated from all the feelings he was pouring into it. She was stunned when he broke away, her lips pulled up in a slightly dopey smile as she tried to catch her breath.

“Let’s just give them some privacy…” Ryner muttered calmly, ushering her assistant out of the recovery room with her.

The door closed and the room instantly became stifling hot.

“Hi…” Pidge whispered, running a hand through her hair and trying to focus. She was so damn lightheaded. And she wasn’t sure if that was because of Lance literally stealing her breath or because her injury was starting to resurface.

“Don’t fucking _hi_ me,” Lance responded, but he was smiling as he cupped her cheek and rested his forehead to hers. “Jesus Pidge… I thought you were going to die. Stop doing this to me!”

She chuckled. “I’m alive. Not kicking because apparently I still have a damn hole in my body, but definitely alive.”

He engulfed her in a super tight hug, burying her in his armsand laughing a little breathlessly. Pidge clung to him, warmth spreading through her chest and her heart drumming hard against her ribcage.

“I’m so fucking mad at you, but you’re alive and I’m so happy you’re alive but I keep remembering what you did and it makes me so fucking mad at you! Why the hell did you try to fight her?”

“She was trying to kill us, Lance,” she said, her voice muffled in his shoulder. “And she almost succeeded by using me. I’m sorry.”

He pulled away, giving her a serious look. “That’s not your fault, okay? There was nothing you could have done with her controlling your mind.”

Pidge’s face twisted a bit. She felt guilty looking in his concerned blue eyes. There _was_ something she could have done right from the start. But she’d kept everything to herself and the conflict had escalated so horribly as a result.

“Does your injury hurt?” Lance asked, gesturing towards her abdomen.

“Starting to. As long as I don’t move the area too much, it’s not that bad.” She let go of Lance and pressed down lightly on that part of her skin. If she put enough pressure, little pinpricks of pain crawled up her back. “I’m just glad I passed out right after the electrocution. Otherwise I probably would have been in a lot of pain.”

Lance’s brows drew down. “Well, not _right_ after.”

“Yeah…? I passed out right after.” Pidge gave him a questioning look. “I mean, I don’t remember anything except for you crying, I think, so I think it’s safe to say I wasn’t awake. Was I awake?”

“Yes, you definitely were. And coherent enough to talk.” Exasperation passed through his features for a second, but disappeared just as quickly and irritation filled its place. “You know what, I’m sick of this. We said we were going to talk after the fight, and I know you’re not better yet, but we keep taking steps back and quite frankly, I’m tired of waiting to clear this up.”

She frowned. “Steps back?”

As far as she was concerned, they’d been getting pretty intense in her lion before the mission, and she was pretty sure she’d made it clear that she wanted him. How was that stepping back?

“You told me in no uncertain terms that kiss in the kitchen meant a lot, Pidge. You have to know how I feel about you, and I don’t think you would purposely try to hurt me, but there’s this small doubt in my mind that you’re trying to take back what you said by acting like this.”

That annoyed her. “Lance, I don’t even remember what the fuck happened. I wouldn’t be that cruel to do something like that to you.”

“I mean, it’s not so farfetched a belief. You act like you’re wary of emotional intimacy with me and I think it’s because you’ve been scared of where we’re headed. It’s like you didn’t believe that my feelings are that intense. Or that yours could be.”

What the hell had she said to him?

“I’m not…” She wrung her hands on her lap, trying to wrack her brain over what might be a possible conversation that had him so irate that she couldn’t remember. Had she told him she wanted to be more or something? “Not scared, per se. But I guess I was kind of avoiding talking before because truth be told, I was thinking you still were into Allura.”

“Not anymore,” he said staunchly, looking her in the eye.

“I-I get that now. Keith and I talked about it. My relationship with you is nothing like what I had with Joth. We have something way deeper than some fly-by-night whirlwind romance with an alien in another galaxy. And maybe that was why I had my reservations moving our relationship in that direction. Failure for us will have far more destructive consequences in our daily lives. And I didn’t want to risk it at first. I mean, I still kind of don’t in some ways. But I got over it. I meant what I said during the meteor shower, Lance. I want to be closer…”

Lance was silent for a while, though he waited patiently for her to get out her thoughts.

“But what I want from you isn’t friendship. Isn’t _just_ friendship.”

“I don’t want to be casual with you anymore either. I can’t just go back to pretending we’re friends with a hint of something more when I’d be lying to myself and to you.” He took her hand, his cheeks a bit flushed and a slightly nervous look in his eyes. “Because I’m pretty in love with you, Katie Holt.”

Her heart thundered in her chest, eyes wide from the unexpected confession. “Lance, I…”

The doors burst open to shouts of her name and they both startled, Pidge jumping for the second time as the rest of the paladins entered the recovery room of the med bay with Ryner and the assistant. Hunk and Allura led the pack with tears streaming down their faces and before she could even tell them to be careful, she was yanked into the mother of all dog pile bear hugs. And then Shiro, Coran, and Keith joined in and she found herself wondering how long it would be until all the breath got squeezed out of her lungs. She could hear Lance’s muffled shouts and his hand was crushing the life out of hers (pretty sure that was his face wedged in her chest) and she just knew he’d gotten caught in the bramble of limbs. Somewhere nearby, she could hear Ryner’s chuckles.

“Guys…” Pidge wheezed, nearly choking and trying to get herself out of the group hug. “Guys, I can’t breathe…”

“Pidge, you need to stop having near death experiences like this!” Shiro scolded, a hint of fear in his voice as he pulled back to give her more room. Shiro was usually in such good control of his emotions, but he could barely keep his voice from wavering. It was a little shocking. “We all thought you weren’t going to make it! And then to find out you’d gotten mind controlled by Vhruk! We’re lucky that our battle wasn’t difficult otherwise we might not have been able to make it here in time!”

The others followed suit to give her space (yes, that had been Lance), but it took Keith taking hold of Hunk’s shoulders to finally pry him off of Pidge. She smiled at them, happy to see them and her eyes welled with tears. She knew they all cared about her, but damn, she loved her found family and it was nice to be reminded that they loved her too when she heard it and saw it and felt…

Huh.

That was odd.

Usually, strong emotions were accompanied by even stronger thoughts and she couldn’t stop hearing them even if she wanted to. But her mind was strangely blank, and no one was projecting sharply enough. There was a thread of thought running through Hunk’s mind that she could kind of pick up, and Lance’s thoughts were kind of peeking into her head, but both were garbled to the point she couldn’t read it clearly despite being right next to them.

And she couldn’t hear anyone else at all.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t been hearing _any_ thoughts at all since she woke up. And she should have definitely picked up on Lance’s thoughts during their emotionally charged conversation.

Pidge narrowed her eyes, lessening her control on her mind and letting it go blank the way she did when she wanted an influx of thoughts to enter her head. But to her surprise, no flood cascaded in. She could feel Lance’s affection and the subsiding fear of the rest of their crew. But she couldn’t even feel the usual pricks of certain strong thoughts trying to force their way in her head. It was like her ability had gotten snuffed a bit. Or was weaker than it was before?

She could hear Hunk wondering if she was okay when she tried her best to listen to his thoughts, but that was about it, unless she focused on everyone else.

“Pidge?” Keith asked, a concerned look on his face as he turned to Hunk. “What are you concentrating on?”

She was so fucking confused.

But trying to focus on the thoughts was making her head hurt though, so she stopped. She didn’t try to block out her mind as usual, leaving it open and lax so the “signals” could reach her.

“Her heartrate is elevating,” Ryner pointed out, walking over to the hovering monitor above Pidge’s head.

“Pidge, take deep breaths, okay?” Shiro said in a soothing tone, a comforting hand on her back. Lance gave her hand a squeeze and she tried to relax her face so as to not worry them. “You’re not in any life threatening danger anymore.”

“…How do we know for sure?” Allura surveyed the monitor with Ryner uneasily. “Vhruk might have done something to her when she controlled her.”

“Agreed! How much longer do we have for Pidge to need healing?” Coran asked, turning to Ryner.

The Olkari scientist scratched her chin. “Roughly forty doboshes. From our initial scans, the princess might indeed be correct. There is a belligerent agent in the young paladin’s brain function.”

“No… that’s always been there.” Pidge sighed and ran a tired hand through her hair, and though she couldn’t feel most of the shock in their heads, their expressions more than gave it away.

Hunk looked alarmed. “What?”

“Pidge, you’re not making much sense…” Keith scowled, his expression more worried than angry though. “Are you okay?”

Pidge swallowed hard as she looked at each of their faces in turn. “I need to tell you all something. It’s important. And it’s about this whole past movement. And me.”

“…Are you dying?” Lance asked in a weak voice, the pain in his thoughts floating into her head.

“No, I don’t think so. Well… I’m not 100% positive.”

Hunk and Allura glanced at each other uncertainly while Shiro’s brows drew down. Keith quirked a brow and Lance looked like he was getting ready to make a pretty big fuss, but Coran quickly interjected.

“Well, we won’t get anywhere if we just sit here staring at her. Let’s get her in a pod to heal first!”

“I agree with Coran.” Shiro crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Healing Pidge takes precedence. And then we’ll all talk.”

Pidge nodded and didn’t even protest when Lance scooped her up to carry her to the Castle. Their group made their way out in a rush, thanking Ryner in a cacophony of voices, but more focused on getting Pidge fixed up than figuring out what she had to say.

“Lance…” she said quietly so no one else would hear, and he glanced down at her. “I need to respond to what you said too. Properly. I know you said you were tired of taking steps back, but can it wait just a little until all this is done?”

He smiled softly. “I’d wait forever for you, Pidge.”

Her face heated up as her pulse picked up and she groaned, hiding her face in her hands. She felt more than heard Lance’s chuckles as he held her closer.

“God… you dork.”

It made her so happy she didn’t think she’d ever stop blushing again. But she was apprehensive about revealing the mind reading.

How would her friends react?

How would Lance?

 

…

 

Like always, Pidge cringed and shivered when she tripped out of the cryopod and the healing vapours left her pores. Allura helped her out, draping her in one of her nightrobes since Pidge was still in her underwear. She supported her weight as they headed down the small set of steps. Pidge touched her abdomen, pressing down on it, and was satisfied to note that there was no hole whatsoever, and the discomfort was completely gone. She rolled her wrist around too, bending it back and forth, and pleased that her full range of motion had returned.

She felt kind of itchy and restless though, and judging by the fact that pretty much everyone had changed to their lounging clothes, she’d hazard a guess that she’d been in for quite a few varga. Pidge walked over to where Lance was leaning against a table and squeezed into the space between his arm and body. She squished against him, resting her head on his chest as he gently rubbed her side. Lance was really warm and after being in a chilled cryopod for so long, she really wanted to snuggle up to a warm body.

“How are you feeling?” Coran asked her.

“A little sleepy,” she responded playfully, sniffling and rubbing her own arms when the last vestiges of the healing air left her body and made her shiver. “Not on the verge of death at least.”

No one looked amused by her response. In fact, most of them were either looking at her in worry or squinting at her scan results with furrowed brows. And in the case of a few—mainly Lance—displeasure.

“…I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Shiro said quietly, his eyes on her scan results.

“Pidge, what the hell is _that_?” Keith questioned, gesturing to the screen. “It looks like it’s taking over your body.”

Crap.

Contrary to her scans from before and all the tests she’d had, now they were showing a destructive object in her body. Coran had pulled up a more in depth analysis which was showing a holographic image of her brain and spinal cord, almost entirely red and travelling through her fluid. Red was the general colour the Altean scan tended to show for the existence of foreign particles in their bodies, but her elevated leukocyte level meant her body was trying to fight it, which was a dead giveaway to the fact that yes, that mind control trick with Vhruk had likely activated it to wreak havoc.

She licked her lips nervously. “That’s… Vhruk’s weapon.”

“The weapon you broke?” Shiro checked for clarification and she nodded with a slight grimace.

The way people’s gazes snapped to her made her bristle. But her trepidation didn’t nearly rise as high from their reactions as it did when Lance’s hand stilled entirely. He tensed up, and though muted, his anger travelled through her mind.

 “…As in the one you told me wasn’t affecting you anymore?” Lance muttered.

Pidge glanced up at Lance, trying to figure out his current state of mind, but his face was carefully guarded. Hunk glanced at Keith with a slight wince, and Pidge definitely felt the concern they were exuding. Lance’s mood had darkened. He’d already been pretty on edge from the fight with Vhruk and her nearly dying, but she could just feel that things were about to go so horribly wrong.

“You told us most of it evaporated.” Hunk piped up, his brows furrowed in worry. “So we were right then? You inhaled it?”

“Yeah. That’s why I wanted my fluids drawn, Coran. And that’s what I was checking for that time you caught me looking at my test results, Lance. At the time, it wasn’t an active agent and I was fine. It was kind of just chilling. But I guess after the fight with Vhruk, it’s become something dangerous now.”

“Well, what is it doing to you?” Allura asked, gesturing to the image of her body’s figure and the way the weapon was travelling. “It still looks like it’s just floating around.”

“From what I’m seeing,” Coran explained as he rubbed his chin pensively, “it’s trying to take over her mind, but it needs some sort of stimulus. Or a command of sorts.”

Pidge nodded. “That’s how Vhruk was controlling me. She had some specialised collar and activated the weapon to use her own mind to force me to do her will.”

“It doesn’t look like it’s affecting you right now, thankfully.” Shiro let out a small sigh of relief. “Your body recognises it’s fairly malevolent, but the weapon is just kind of waiting right now.”

“So then it’s not really doing anything to you?” Keith asked.

Pidge chewed on her lower lip, mentally preparing herself for what she was about to reveal to them.

“Actually, no… It did do something to me. Something that’s been ongoing ever since the gala. After my near death experience, I umm, I started to hear everyone’s thoughts, and it was super strong before, but I think after my fight with Vhruk, it’s gotten a lot weaker.”

Coran looked so confused. “I beg your pardon?”

“Somehow the weapon made me a mind reader.”

There was absolute silence, everyone stunned and gaping at her like they couldn’t believe what she’d just said.

Keith broke the silence first. “Mind…?”

“Reader.” Pidge confirmed.

“…Kind of makes sense now that you think about it, I guess.” Shiro muttered, though he looked nervous. “King Qylt’s interrogation, for one.”

“And her freakouts and outbursts at the weirdest moments.” Hunk pointed out.

“And her awfully convenient comments, now that you mention it,” Allura agreed, pensively rubbing her chin and staring at the ceiling.

 “Wait, but if you’re a mind reader,” Keith said quietly, a look of horror slowly building on his face, “you heard… so that’s how you— you know about all my…?”

“Yeah Keith.” She arched a brow and gave him a teasing smirk. “Every time you were near me, I saw them. Every. Single. One. When we were sparring, when you came back from missions, during the meteor shower.”

Keith went deathly quiet, a violent blush on his face as he swallowed hard in embarrassment. The rest all looked between her and Keith in confusion over his sudden nervous reaction.

“So you’ve seen everything in all our heads this whole time?” Lance asked, but oddly enough, she couldn’t read his vibe at all. He had no expression on his face either.

“From time to time, yes.”

She didn’t know which she found more amusing. The fact that they just accepted the mindreading as truth because of how crazy stuff in space was at times or the fact that they were all scrambling to figure out if they’d had any awkward thoughts in her vicinity since that gala. Because in the process, some awkward stuff she’d never even seen or heard before ended up trailing into her mind.

Like Coran’s apparent binding fetish. And the fact that last deca-phoeb Keith had found a Champion fan page made by some Galra and still frequently visited it to see half naked pictures of Shiro for his reservoir of wanking images. And Hunk stress baking in the nude.

_Wait, so she knows I haven’t gotten laid since we left earth?_

And Shiro apparently needing to get laid.

She had to chew on the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing.

Allura flushed a pretty pink. “So you know about the waxing incident, Pidge?”

“What waxing incident?”

“Nevermind,” Allura said quickly and started deliberately thinking about nice bubble baths.

“I don’t know whether I should feel violated or be freaking out because that is so fucking cool!” Hunk exclaimed. “The scientist in me wants to study you!”

Hunk seemed to be the only one who wasn’t kind of nervous. She didn’t blame him, considering he was the only one who hadn’t had horrendous thoughts she could have caught in his head.

But she felt a little relieved. She’d thought maybe they’d all react to it in disappointment or irritation, but aside from Lance’s odd expression, they all seemed to be okay with it, if not anxious and quietly trying to block off their thoughts.

“It _was_ a little cool, until I ended up controlled,” Pidge continued, steering them back in the right direction because that fight against the commander had brought to light something important in their mission. “But Vhruk said there are many more collars out there and that it’s their next goal to bring the empire back. If she was able to have that strong a hold on me, can you imagine what they could do if they expose entire populations to this smog? Whoever is left of the Galra is really trying their damned hardest to bring the empire back by using inhabitants of space as puppets.”

Shiro’s brows furrowed. “This does pose a dangerous problem. And it makes me wonder how many more insurgents are out there who’d been working with Vhruk in other parts of space. I was wondering why no large fleets attacked Qiolea.”

She’d forgotten about that part of the battle. “Did you guys get attacked at all?”

Keith nodded. “By a small fleet, but we got rid of them quickly and the rest escaped after they received some sort of signal. Like they were being called to abandon their mission. When Hunk showed up, we thought you’d captured Vhruk quickly too.”

“You know, Hunk kept the broken collar,” Allura brought up. “We can try to use it to figure out what location they are being manufactured.”

“And good news is, even broken, Vhruk’s collar emits a certain wavelength that might come in handy for locating other smog weapons,” Hunk added. “And if all else fails, we know a seriously technologically advanced nation would be able to produce that smog, so we could start our searches there.”

“So now we know our next mission. To find and destroy all and any remnants of that weapon in the universe and hopefully stop the Galra’s attempts to reform the empire for good.” Shiro walked over to the diagram of the weapon moving in Pidge’s body. “But if we’re going to be going after these dangerous collars, it wouldn’t be prudent to leave the weapon inside you, Pidge. We still don’t know the extent of what it does, and it got activated the first time it was used. How do we know the second time won’t become poison in your body and kill you?”

Her shoulders slumped. That was a good point. “We don’t.”

“What if we blocked the collars’ signal to Pidge’s head? Made it so she can also be used to locate collars, but like in a good way so she can’t get controlled again?”

“Absolutely not!” Coran said emphatically while looking at Hunk like he was crazy. “Under any other circumstances it might be a good idea to consider but we don’t know if _this_ weapon if left untreated will eventually take over her body and eat her alive. That is far too risky.”

“…What if we transferred it though?” Pidge mused. “What if we created a tracker that responds to the wavelength of the collars? It looks like this nanoweapon needs a living brain, so why not make an artificial brain to transfer this weapon onto? It would have the same kind of composition as my brain, and its sole purpose would be a container for the weapon.”

_Umm, is anyone else not worried that we might end up making a super villain or something?_

Hunk did have a point.

“I think that would be the best way to handle it as well,” Allura agreed.

“And we still have samples of the weapon in the lab,” Pidge continued. “Hunk and I can get started on engineering an antidote to get this thing out of me.”

Coran nodded, looking pleased with the turn of the conversation. “You can use one to create Pidge’s antidote and the other for this vessel brain.”

“Exactly!”

“…Lance, you’ve been awfully quiet the whole time.” Shiro turned to him in concern. “Did you want to add anything?”

“Why are you guys acting like what she just told us isn’t a problem?” he growled.

Lance’s jaw was clenched as he pushed himself off the table and pulled away from Pidge. She missed his body heat almost immediately. When he turned to face Pidge, the look on his face made her stomach drop to her feet.  If her mind reading was up to par, she might have been able to pick up on the vexation in his head. Then again, looking at him, it wasn’t like he was particularly hiding his indignant anger.

“You could read our thoughts, right?” There was something furious in his gaze as he confronted her and it made Pidge bristle. “The entire time?”

He was still on that?

“A lot of strong ones, yeah.”

“So this whole time you’ve known what’s been on my mind about you—about _us_ —and you just chose to ignore it?”

“Lance, we can discuss her lack of foresight in not telling us afterward,” Shiro’s face twisted in unease, “but that’s not really relevant right—”

“I didn’t ignore it.” Pidge refuted sharply. She didn’t know why he was trying to bring this conversation up right now. They were discussing something entirely different. Was it really necessary to talk about this in front of their friends? “At the time I didn’t believe what I was seeing in your head. No offence, Lance, but you’ve been a little frivolous with your affections in the past, so I wasn’t exactly going to believe some random daydream.”

“It’s not even fully about that. Pidge, I told you I wanted things between us to be serious, but not if you kept secrets from me!”

“I’m allowed to keep _some_ things to myself, Lance. I don’t owe you every detail about every fucking thing in my life!”

“Stop trying to deflect! That isn’t the issue here. I _asked_ you to tell me the truth about whether the weapon was affecting you and you lied to me!”

“I didn’t lie! I told you about everything else, _but_ the mind reading! That wasn’t something I could easily—”

“A lie of omission is _still_ a lie, Pidge! You kept this huge secret and deceived me into thinking you’d open up to me for real. After we literally just had an issue about you lying to me! And on top of all that, you knew you had the weapon in your head the whole time, didn’t say anything to any of us which led us to making the _worst_ possible decision for who should be confronting Vhruk. You could have jeopardised our entire mission for Qiolea because you withheld this information! Hunk and I both almost died because of what ended up happening! And even worse than that, _you_ could have died and I would have lost you and I don’t know what I… I get that you value your fucking independence, but how could you do that to us?!”

_How could you do that to me?_

Her vision blurred with tears as she reached out for him. “Lance, it wasn’t on purpose.”

“God, Pidge…” Lance took a sharp step back and ran a hand through his hair in frustration, hurt evident in his face. “You are unbelievable.”

He turned on his heel and left the room, leaving her standing there blinking in shock, so much guilt squeezing in her chest. She hadn’t read Lance’s mind while he left, but she didn’t have to. He’d made it pretty clear in his expression and the fact that he’d _left_ that he was pretty much done with her.

She let out a shuddering breath, her heart wrenching in her chest. He’d just told her he loved her and she loved him too and she’d fucked everything up.

She hadn’t even had a chance to tell him how she felt yet.

“Pidge, are you okay…?” Keith asked, his eyes looking after where Lance had stormed off.

“No… I-I uh… I need to go apologise to Lance right now.” She sniffled and turned to the others. “Can this whole nanoweapon thing wait? I _need_ to go talk to him.”

They all gave each other uneasy looks, but the only bit of thought she could catch was Keith’s partial amusement.

_We all know you’re not just going to him to apologise, Pidge. Or talk._

Which she didn’t appreciate one bit.

“Bench press blowjob,” she snapped, giving him the evil eye.

Keith started coughing into his elbow in surprise, choking on his own spit from the shock. The others looked horrified, clearly trying to figure out what she’d even meant in the first place by saying ‘blowjob’. Keith’s face was red as fuck and when Shiro moved close to rub his back and check on him, his blushing got even worse. He looked up through watery eyes to flip Pidge off and she smirked to herself.

The mind reading had given her a shit ton of grief, but this blackmail material she now had on Keith kind of made up for it.

“But getting the weapon out of you is kind of a priority, Pidge,” Allura tried to reason, though Pidge knew she was empathising with her judging by what was on her mind. “We still don’t know how long it will be dormant or if it could wake at any moment.”

Coran tsked in displeasure. “With all due respect, Number 5, I believe we should attempt to get this out of you as soon as possible! Before you possibly end up—”

“I know it’s important, but so is my relationship with Lance! And if I don’t take care of this now, there might not even _be_ a relationship with Lance.” Pidge gave Shiro an imploring look. “He’ll never even look at me again. And that means no more Voltron.”

Though the thought of him dismissing her for good made her want to cry.

“But there’s a potentially toxic substance in your body.” Coran looked distressed, trying to plead with her to reconsider. “I understand your concerns, but—”

“Coran,” Shiro said, gently interrupting him as he stroked Keith’s back. “The scans show she’s not in any immediate danger. We’ll get the weapon out as soon as possible. But just let her go for now.”

 **_Please_ ** _let her go so they can just fuck already and get rid of this goddamn tension! We’re all sick of this shit!_

And then Shiro gasped softly and glanced at Pidge with a panicked look on his face, clearly wondering if she’d heard that.

Pidge pretended like she hadn’t heard a thing, only because Shiro was on her side. “It won’t be long. I promise, Coran.”

“Yeah, somehow I doubt that…” Keith said as he gave Pidge a dry look, and Hunk elbowed him with a smile to stop.

Pidge’s cheeks turned red, because this time, she saw all their thoughts and pretty much every one of them believed they weren’t about to see her for the rest of the night.

“I’ll see what I can figure out about the antidote with Coran, Pidge,” Hunk said with a friendly smile, and despite his reservations, Coran sighed, resigned. “Don’t worry about it. Just go make up with Lance.”

He walked over to her and handed her a familiar little box from his pocket and when she frowned in confusion, he winked.

“It’s Ryner’s gift to you. Make sure you take it, okay? You’ll need it.”

Okay.

Hunk was officially on her shit list too.

Pidge turned away red faced and could not get out of the room fast enough. As she was exiting the med bay, she heard Allura’s not so good whispering.

“Hunk, when you said ‘make up’, were you referring to that phrase make up _sex_? I was not aware Lance and Pidge were engaging in intercourse.”

Someone shushed her and Pidge really wondered who the fuck she’d pissed off to end up in such awkward situations so often.

But honestly…

It wouldn’t hurt, right? It wasn’t like anything was going to happen at the moment—Lance seemed a little too mad—but then again, the last two times had kind of just… _happened_. Pidge looked around to make sure there weren’t any mice spying on her from the vents to report back to the Gossip King or Queen and opened the small case.

She popped the gumball thing in her mouth and swallowed it, wondering if she was crazy to even entertain this in the first place.

It didn’t matter anyway. Her priority was to talk to Lance.

Before he decided nothing with her was worth it.

 

…

 

“Lance?” Pidge pounded on his room door again. “Lance, open up. I know I fucked up, but I never meant to hurt you. Can we talk about this? Please let me in?”

There was no response.

It disheartened her. She knew he could be extremely stubborn when he wanted to be, especially when he was pissed off, but this was taking it to new heights. She’d been knocking on his door for nearly a dobosh and he had yet to say anything to her. As frustrating as it was, she understood why he was giving her the cold shoulder, but that still didn’t help the anxious roiling of her stomach.

“Look, the reason I kept it a secret was… I don’t know, I guess maybe a small part of me wanted to spy in your head. It was just kind of a cool trick I could keep to myself, but then things started getting crazy and twisted and then we _kissed_ and things with us got so wild and I didn’t know what to do. I got hints of your feelings here and there Lance, but I honest to goodness didn’t think they meant anything. Mostly because at the time, I just needed confirmation that you didn’t still like Allura.”

She waited for a few ticks, straining her ear to see if she could hear anything inside his room, but there was nothing. She continued with a sigh.

“Can you please find it in your heart to forgive me? We were just starting to find each other again. After all the stupid fighting and not talking about our feelings and after everything we’ve fucked up and then fixed and then fucked up again and finally fixed only to fuck it up all over again…” She laughed a little with a scoff and realised her eyes were wet with unshed tears. She wiped them away and sniffled a bit. “God… look at how stupidly emotional I’m getting. This is your fault, you bean pole idiot. You turned me into the girl who cries over a stupid guy.”

Still no response.

“I’m sorry, okay? I know I’ve been… I haven’t been the best friend lately, I know you’ve felt I’ve been distant and I know this is my fault and you’re justified if you want to give up on us, but it’d be a real shame and I really hope you haven’t because…” She rested her forehead against the door and closed her eyes, her voice lowering to a whisper she knew he wouldn’t hear. “…I’m pretty sure I love you too.”

Still silence, and Pidge felt her throat constrict.

So that was that, huh?

“Lance…”

“Right. So, I couldn’t really catch that last bit, and honestly, the insults I could do without, but it’s a decent apology,” Lance suddenly said from behind her.

She spun around with a gasp and nearly stumbled over her feet. He was leaning against the wall across from his door, watching her impassively.

“Wha…?! Why weren’t you in your room?!”

“Bathroom.”

“So you heard everything, right?” Pidge leaned back against his room door, mimicking Lance’s posture and setting one foot against the steel.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I came in at the spying in my head part.”

“Oh great,” she joked awkwardly. “So I have to grovel again.”

“Pidge, why is it so hard for you to just talk to me? For some reason you believe you’re doing the right thing by not telling us anything, and I know it’s not like this behaviour is new. This is standard for you, I get it.” Lance shrugged, still not giving her any sort of reaction or sign that he had forgiven her. It made her stomach feel like it was knotting in loops. “But you keeping things from me _is_ new. And that’s not something I can overlook. All I wanted was for you to talk to me. I wanted to know if you even saw me as someone in your life the way I saw you, but then it’s like you don’t trust me at all, and that’s hard to deal with.”

She had to clear the air. She had to tell him what was up because he was right. Ever since she’d started peeking into his head, they’d communicated worse and worse and that was never the kind of people they were. She was convinced this mind reading smog was a curse now.

How did they go from being so in sync with one another to barely being able to understand each other?

“The reason I ran from you that night, Lance,” she started, and clearly he hadn’t expected her to bring it up of her own accord because his brows rose up his forehead in surprise, “was because I saw into your head. And you were imagining us… well, having sex, and I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand why you wanted me so much. At first. And then it got me thinking how much I wanted you. Which made me freak out because I never really thought there was a sexual attraction on your part.”

“Did it really disturb you that much?”

“ _Yes_ , Lance. You might fantasize about that sometimes—”

“It’s actually pretty constant. Have to clean the sheets most nights.”

“—ew.” She scrunched up her nose and he couldn’t help his playful smile. “My point is, I didn’t expect it because you never really made it clear to me in any ways before that you saw me that way. Or rather, clear in ways that I could pick up, but I’ve been told by many people that I’m apparently oblivious, so make of that what you will. And then to see us in your daydream like that… I didn’t know how to respond. So I ran. In retrospect, it wasn’t the greatest decision.”

“But I get it… It wasn’t really like you could easily tell me what you’d seen, plus you would have had to explain why you knew what I was thinking. And at that point you were committed to keeping it a secret, right?” She nodded and Lance rubbed the back of his neck. “Truth be told, I probably would have denied the 69 thing to save face.”

Pidge rose a brow. “Umm… you weren’t imagining a 69 scenario then.”

“…Oh.”

_Was it the squirting one then?_

“Well now I know why you kept losing every time we played,” she drawled.

“In my defence, you were unintentionally seducing me.” His cheeks were just the slightest bit flushed. “I mean, _fuck_ , Pidge. You have no idea how much I respect you, but it is an impossible feat not getting turned on in my dark bedroom with an attractive girl who smells really good and is barely wearing any clothes. I could always see down your shirt and you would always do that thing with your hair and you kept leaning forward to change settings or restart the game and your shorts barely covered your ass so I’d get this fantastic view and you’d do this little wiggle thing while you waited and it killed me inside a little each time.”

Her own face was on fire. “Is that why you made us stop playing on your bed last deca-phoeb?”

“One time you stretched all carelessly and your shirt rode up and you moaned when your character lost half their life and I swear that was the worst torture I have ever endured in my life. I pretended I was sick so you could leave because I had the worst boner I’ve ever had in my life.”

She remembered that night. Lance had refused to look at her the rest of the night.

She knew why now.

“You know, I was going to try to get you to move the video games to the lounge so I wouldn’t have to be alone with you because seeing us fucking in your daydream got me a little riled up. In retrospect, it’s a good thing I didn’t. You probably would have thought it was a Keith thing.”

He chuckled to himself a bit. “You’re not wrong.”

She released the breath she’d been holding when most of the tension in his shoulders diffused. “Lance, I really am sorry, okay? I’m still trying to get the hang of this thing between us. But I’m kind of scared. It’s just— it _is_ all a little intense… My feelings. Yours. Everything. And there’s so much pressure not to mess this up. Too late, I guess?”

Lance was watching her without an expression, and she licked her lips, her hands messing with the rope of the nightrobe as he took in what she’d said.

“Katie,” Lance said resolutely, and Pidge’s heart began to double time when he walked slowly towards her. “I’m scared too. But I’m not going to take back what I said to you earlier. I know it’s a lot, but I’m also serious about us. I’m not the kind of person who wants to keep holding back my true feelings, because the way I feel about you…”

She couldn’t do much but stare at him, her breathing coming out a little shallow. She knew the feeling; she _knew_ why her heart felt like it was swelling to the point she couldn’t breathe right whenever she looked at Lance. And he had them for her too. In some weird way she still couldn’t fathom, he had them for her too.

He stopped in front of her, eyes intent on her. “I’m never going to expect you to say anything about your feelings if you’re not ready to, but I’m not holding back what I want from you anymore.”

“…Are you still mad at me for keeping the secret?”

“I am.”

She could feel it. He did have vestiges of anger in his head, but it was muted by something else particularly heady. A shiver of anticipation went down her back. The tone of their conversation was infinitely more dangerous than it had been before.

“What can I…” She licked her lips again. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

For a breathless moment, they stared at each other, something electric charging in the air. She knew what she’d said with those words, and from the look on his face, Lance did too.

“I’m tired of holding back, Katie.”

She was too.

So when he stepped into her space, leaning down, and his mouth closed over hers, she gave in willingly, rising to her tiptoes and twining her arms around his neck.  Unlike the first two times they’d kissed, his intentions were clear. He was more demanding, his arms sliding around her, surrounding her like he never wanted to let go. He kissed her like he was scared to lose her, like he was furious with her, like he _needed_ to show her how much he loved her, like he needed to brand himself in her memory, on her skin, in her body, in her heart.

Pidge grew light headed fast, fire blazing under her skin from the searing kiss. It deepened immeasurably, Lance’s hand sinking into her hair, his fingers gripping the strands to near hurting, his tongue stroking hers and she grew breathless. Pidge couldn’t help her soft moan, couldn’t help but let herself melt into his kiss when he nipped at her bottom lip, capturing her mouth again in fervent desire.

His whole body was hot, inciting the warmth in her abdomen into a singing inferno when he yanked her up onto his waist like she weighed nothing at all. Pidge curled her legs around him, panting for breath when her back hit the door and he rolled his hips into hers, something hard and delicious rubbing against her. She tilted her head back, flushing as he broke the kiss to trail wet, open mouthed ones down the sensitive column of her neck. His hand fumbled with the keypad beside his door, blindly punching numbers in until he’d gotten his door open.

There was a part of her that found it surreal that she could find herself in Lance’s embrace like this, no obstacles in the way to slow them down from where they were undoubtedly hurtling towards. And it was all moving a little fast—his hands slipping the knot of the nightrobe, letting it tumble off her shoulders and drop to the floor, caressing her thighs and ass— _way_ fast. But she’d known the moment his door shut behind him that there was no way they were turning back after this.

And Pidge absolutely didn’t care.

She’d wanted this for a while, and quite frankly, if she wasn’t sure about him, she wouldn’t be doing this right now.

Lance carried her over to his bed and sat down on it, lips meeting hers again in a deep kiss that left her delirious. She straddled his lap, lost in the heat of his mouth as she fisted her hands in his t-shirt to drag him closer to her. She was addicted to the taste of him, the way his breathing came out in short pants, the feel of his hands under her sports bra, cupping and kneading her breasts. Pidge slowly ground her hips down on him and they both moaned, momentarily gasping for breath against each other’s mouth. The low and hoarse warning of her name from his lips had heat dancing between her legs.

So she did it again.

And watching Lance’s eyes darken with desire, his cheeks flushed as he watched her had her stomach flipping in anticipation.

Their hands roamed everywhere, hers trailing down his abdomen to tug at the hem of his shirt. They broke apart for only a moment to get it over his head and she’d barely tossed it aside before he caught her mouth again. This kiss was slower, more intense, his grip on her waist near bruising with each slow roll of her hips on his erection. He was hard and throbbing through his sweatpants, and Pidge knew she ached for him. She pressed her body against him, her hands grasping his shoulders as he slid his hands up and down her back. It was kind of a lot, the slow press of his arousal between her thighs, and Pidge knew she was growing dizzy with want.

“Lance…” she moaned, a little appalled by the needy sounding whine that left her mouth.

He responded with a groan, lifted her up, and laid her down on his bed. His body was heavy on hers in all the best ways and she draped her arms around his back, relishing in the way his skin felt on hers, the strain of the muscles on his back and arms as he rocked slowly against her. He trailed kisses along her jaw to her ear before he took her earlobe between his teeth.

“Katie… I want to go down on you.”

A shiver went down her back from the look in his eyes. Her eyes widened, partially surprised by his admission, partially surprised that he wanted to be down there in the first place. It wasn’t like she was scared, but just the thought of Lance’s face being in between her legs with his tongue on her…

Heat blossomed on her face, her heart stuttering in her chest. “Lance, a-are you sure? I’m not fully shaved down there and—”

“That doesn’t bother me.”

“I just… I don’t want to mess this up.”

Plus, she knew she was going to end up sounding like some wanton sex fiend and that kind of got her a little nervous. The whole idea did really, though part of her was tingling with excitement.

He looked entirely amused. “Trust me. There is absolutely nothing you could possibly do to mess this up.”

_Unless your vagina has teeth or something…_

A wave of his brief fear hit her and coupled with his thought, it was too funny. She snorted, and Lance gave her a weird look. But in the next second, his expression turned to one of realisation.

“ _Oh_ , you heard me.”

“Yeah, and you better tell me this story. I told you about the debutante thing!”

He winced, looking like it was torture just to think about. “I’d rather not relive the trauma of my first time right now. Anyway, I passed out halfway through. Couldn’t masturbate for a whole phoeb.”

Pidge cracked up, laughing at his distress while Lance stared down at her in partial irritation. She felt bad about laughing over his pain, but damn. That was the kind of shit that could only happened to someone in fiction, and the fact that he’d actually gone through something like that was funny as fuck to her.

She probably would have kept right on laughing about it, until Lance shifted and shut her up with a filthy, domineering kiss, parting her lips with his own and reminding her of the throbbing bulge that was pressed up against her. Her laughter died off with a small whimper and she tangled her hands in his hair, making a mess of it, but not caring because _holy shit_. Lance pulled away looking quite pleased with himself and Pidge fought not to show that she was out of breath.

“If you’re really uncomfortable, I won’t, but I want to make you feel good,” he murmured against her lips.

“It’s not that I’m uncomfortable… I just have never…”

Lance met her gaze with a soft smile. “I got you.”

She nodded slowly, and he kissed her again chastely, before moving down, lightly sucking on sensitive parts of her neck. Lance slid his hands up her sides and in the process tugged up her bra. She lifted her arms and he peeled it off of her before resuming his slow decent down her body. He nipped the skin, trailing his lips between her collarbone, taking his sweet time as one hand cupped her, palming her through her panties and making her inhale sharply. Pidge had touched herself before, but from him, it was a whole other experience. The way he kissed her body, caressing her breasts, sucking her nipples, slow and controlled, had her writhing and nearly begging for more.

But as he kept moving down, kissing down her stomach, dipping his tongue in her navel and trailing his lips to the edge of her panties, she did find herself just a bit more nervous. His hands roamed over her ass, squeezing her before he hooked his fingers into her panties and dragged them down her legs. They were discarded and then she was completely nude, her legs open to him. It made her feel vulnerable, but in a good way. Like she was falling, but Lance _was_ right there to catch her. He kissed along her inner thigh, slow, teasing kisses, his soft tufts of breath hitting her right at her entrance and making her chew her lip.

“Just tell me if it’s too much, okay?” he murmured, raking his fingers along her thighs as he pressed light kisses towards her centre.

He lifted her legs onto his shoulders as he lowered his face so his mouth was directly aligned with her opening. She squirmed when she felt Lance kiss her folds, when he flicked his tongue out and ran it slowly along her. It didn’t feel like much of anything at first, just a slight tickle of something wet.

And then Lance shifted, groaning a bit from somewhere in his throat as he pressed harder with his tongue, stroking her in a way that made her gasp. She panted a bit from the slowly rising pressure, a startled moan leaving her lips when a flash of something delicious danced up her spine. And then he did it again, drawing a breathless inhale from her when he sucked her folds into his mouth, his silky tongue dragging along her evenly at a languid pace.

There.

Right there.

 “ _O-oh my God_ …”

She clenched her eyes shut, melting into the covers and growing lost in the dizzying sensation of his mouth and tongue sucking on her, teasing just around her clit, but not quite touching.

It was driving her insane.

Lance said something in response—maybe chuckled, she couldn’t tell—but the vibrations travelled up her body and she jerked, her hand clawing into his hair of its own accord and arching her hips as close to his mouth as she possibly could. She didn’t know _what_ he was doing, but that combination of his sucks and the way he alternated soft, slow flicks of his tongue with the harsher circles had her letting out filthy little cries and before long, she could feel herself clenching, her need to reach her peak growing.

His hands held her thighs apart as he worked her. She made the mistake of looking between her legs at the soft head of hair wedged between her thighs. There was something undeniably hot about seeing him down there, devoted to getting her off. His thoughts weren’t much better, clouded by his desires and happy and willing to spend his time down there. Among his thoughts was something about loving the way she smelled and tasted and it made Pidge’s cheeks erupt in heat.

_God, you are so beautifully wet._

His gaze lifted and met hers, sinfully dark with his determination to ruin her. He took her free hand with his and laced their fingers together. Warmth spread through her body from the way he was driving her closer and closer to the edge, but also making sure she was alright.

Somewhere along the way, his other hand joined the mix, long fingers curled inside her, stroking her walls and hitting something sweet inside her so _perfect_ that it defied all logic. That was all it took for her brain to short circuit.

But when he flattened his tongue on her clit, something wild inside her snapped, unwinding as if someone had tugged on one string and pulled her apart.

“ _Lance_!” she gasped, and then bit her lip to try to hide her high pitched whimpers.

It was unreal.

She couldn’t define what the fuck was happening to her, but it tore through her body, rippling along her limbs and combusting right where Lance had his mouth on her. She clamped her hand over her mouth, her back arching and toes curling as she drowned in a shocking pleasure. It was like molten lava, starting between her legs and raging through her body. An overwhelming sensation, electric and nearly painful in all the best ways.

Pidge sucked in shallow breaths, her eyes squeezed shut and barely able to register the fact that those _sounds_ were coming from her. Lance kept his mouth on her, sucking on her, his tongue stroking her with the same steady pace, and her heart stuttered with every inhale, blood roaring in her ears as her body trembled and tried to make sense of the searing pleasure rendering her breathless and nearly unable to move.

Her toes curled. It was all so overwhelming. She felt like she was unravelling the longer Lance continued to lap at her, unrelenting despite her quivering legs. And more convulsions wracked her body, everything clenching and unclenching. Pidge hissed in pain as she gasped his name again, trying to ride out the far too intense waves of blinding fire that were starting to hurt her from the overstimulation. Her whole body trembled, feeling numb down her back and arms as Lance moved his head away.

For several long ticks, Pidge open and closed her mouth, gaping at the grey ceiling of his room and trying to remember how to speak. Her hand dropped from her mouth and landed bonelessly on the sheets, though she could barely register it.

Lance wiped his wet face with the back of his hand, eyes half-lidded and heavy with lust as he watched her struggle to come back to Earth. There was something about Lance looming over her, his lips wet with her slick and slightly swollen that was such a damn turn-on.

“Was that too much, Pidge?” She could definitely sense the smugness in his tone but he squeezed their intertwined hand to check on her. “Are you okay?”

“I… I can’t breathe…” She gave him a weak squeeze back, her face completely red. “What the fuck did you do to me?”

“I wish you could see the way you look right now.” He nearly growled, crawling on top of her.

She had a pretty good idea based off of what was in his head. Hair fanned out on the bed, her face and body flushed, pupils dilated. Her legs spread and showing him a place he desperately wanted to be inside.

“I’ve had a lot of dreams that started out like this but I never thought it would end up true one day.” He closed his eyes like he was trying to control himself though and let out a deep sigh as he ran a hand through his hair. “But we have to stop.”

“Lance?” She rose up on her elbows, confused and a little worried by his abrupt stop when things had been going so well. “I thought you wanted to…?”

“I did. I _do_. I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you right now.” His expression twisted as if it physically pained him to say these words. “But Shiro was right. You could be fertile Myrtle and I want to do this with you, but I can’t get you pregnant when we’re still trying to fix up space.”

 _Hopefully far in the future, but not right now_.

Her brows lifted at the unexpected thought, but he continued before she could say anything in response.

“The only condom I have left is my lucky condom that I put in my wallet three years ago. I’m not sure how you’d feel about using a super expired condom, but I don’t think you’d appreciate the risk.”

“That’s not really an issue anymore.” She averted her gaze, glancing down at the bulge protruding from the front of Lance’s sweatpants. “I… Ryner uh… gave me an Olkari birth control, Lance. Preemptively.”

“You took it…?”

She nodded.

“Well that changes everything.” Lance absentmindedly stroked her hip, his voice low. “You know I’m not letting you go back to your room tonight, right?”

Pidge snorted. “What are you, going to murder me or something?”

His answering look made her flush.

“Pidge, I’m not kidding. You’re sure or we stop this right now. Because I don’t think I’ll be able to if we go any further.”

She cupped his cheeks. “If I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t be naked in your bed right now.”

That was all the confirmation he needed.

This time when Lance kissed her, it was sweet, an affirmation of his love for her, but just as urgent. He reached down and tugged down his sweatpants and boxers, using his legs to get the clothing off and then kicking them away. It dawned on Pidge that she’d been so focused on how good it had felt when he’d gone down on her that she’d forgotten about being a little anxious. Lance was a little nervous too, excited, but she could definitely sense the same kind of wonder from him too.

He reached between them and smoothed his fingers over her opening. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath as he dragged up her legs to hook around his waist.

The first press of his tip inside her had her clenching, but he murmured something soft and soothing in her ear in Spanish as he rolled his hips forward and sank into her. Her breath caught from the pressure at the same time that Lance groaned into her neck. She took in and let out slow breaths, trying to adjust to the feeling of being so full as she took all of him. Her legs twitched and she tried to focus on the way he peppered light kisses along the column of her neck as opposed to the slight sting. There was something wholly fantastic about the feeling, but she couldn’t really tell over the way her body tried to deal with the stretch from Lance’s cock.

“Does it hurt?”

She chewed on her lower lip. “Not hurt…”

“Am I okay to move?” he breathed out.

She nodded, eyes still closed and focusing on the sensation as he pulled out and drove back in slow. It was repetitive, slow and steady, and though Pidge could feel the tingles of that nice feeling building in her, she couldn’t really tell if it felt _good_ or not. His hesitation in order to make sure she was okay was sweet, but Lance was being a little too cautious.

“Lance, don’t hold back on my account,” she panted.

“I know… but I want to savour the expression on your face forever.”

“You perv.” The word ended up coming out in more of a choked sigh when he thrusted again, a lot harder than before. “There’ll be another time you can do that. Go faster.”

“So this is happening again, huh?” he said, all coy and shit.

Pidge slapped at his arm, but a particularly hard snap of his hips made her grip his bicep instead. He caught a rhythm, rocking deeper into her with each thrust. She bit on a finger, biting back moans as ripples of pleasure danced through her body.

“God… hell yeah…” Lance murmured, a rough groan from the back of his throat making his voice sound even more hoarse. “Katie, you feel amazing…”

Her eyes fluttered open, and their gazes connected. A surge of heat went down her back from the way he looked at her, gaze intent and concentrating on her and her alone. Pidge didn’t think she’d ever been gripped by such intense, unadulterated, _want_ before, but Lance’s heavy breaths, the way he moaned her name, really had her losing it.

His lips brushed her skin, branding her with blazing heat and she wasn’t sure when she lost control over herself, when she couldn’t keep herself from making embarrassing noises, but it was near impossible to hold back. Every time she tried to catch her breath he was thrusting again, hitting something in her that was stealing her breath. His name left her lips again, sounding broken and way more high pitched than she’d intended, but it drew a groan out of him. He hitched a leg higher on his waist, his other hand flat on the wall for leverage. Pidge arched her hips up in tandem with Lance’s thrusts and a shiver ran down her back when his breathing grew stilted, the harsh, uneven rush drifting onto her neck and making her hold onto him tighter.

“ _Deeper_ , Lance…”

He gripped her waist and in one fluid motion, rolled them over so Pidge could control the depth. He gazed up at her in a daze, his breathing laboured as she ground her hips down in a near frenzied pace, a keening moan escaping her lips. Her thighs cramped a bit and the angle was so deep it was a little painful in some ways, but it felt so good and she refused to stop now, not when that tight coil was building, on the verge of snapping. Lance’s hands crawled up her front to squeeze her breasts while she ground down on him, moaning from how deep inside her he was. She shifted her angle the slightest and the unexpected brush of his cock against her clit made her feel scorched, too much sensation running through her body, and air forced out of her lungs in unsteady breaths.

She clasped her hands with Lance’s when he held them up, leaning forward and using the strength in his arms as leverage as she rode him. Their tempo increased, rhythm partially lost to his harsh thrusts into her and her grinding her hips. But that blinding pleasure in her body kept getting stronger. She felt it again, that insane feeling in some perfect spot and she tilted her head back in ecstasy. She couldn’t get enough of the way he slid in and out of her and dragged on her clit.

She was slipping. She could barely breathe.

Their pleasured sighs and ragged moans and punctuated gasps wove together in the air, mingling with the rustling of the sheets and creaking of his mattress, the slick sound of their bodies meeting each other through each forceful thrust, a crescendo building in intensity and heat the closer they got to finishing each other. Lance’s thrusts were getting more erratic, his hands shaking to hold her up, the more effort it took him to hold back.

“ _Katie_...” Lance groaned out, his voice sounding utterly _wrecked_. “Come for me, querida. I want to see you come.”

She had no idea why his words got her the way they did, but his desperate desire to stop holding off and spill deep inside her trickled into her thoughts and mixed with her own need and all of a sudden, it was _too_ much.

Lance thrusted hard and that was pretty much all it took for Pidge to lose it. She couldn’t help but cry out, a broken _yes_ and _holy fuck_ and _fuck yes_ and strained moans of his name, her body shuddering in absolute bliss from the devastating tension under her navel releasing all at once. White lights sparked behind her eyes as she rode out the wave. She could barely register Lance’s last few thrusts before he also let go, groaning in blissful agony. She slumped down on him, panting unsteadily for breath as he slowly combed his fingers through her hair. For several ticks, they stayed right where they were, sweat making their skin stick to each other as they gulped in much needed air.

As they slowly got control over themselves again, Lance let out a small chuckle.

“So this is real sex…” he said with levity.

Pidge started snickering, trying to lift herself, but her entire body felt like jello and it kind of hurt to laugh.

“What the hell are you talking about? You’ve done this before.”

Apparently he didn’t even count the Toothy Vag incident as a real first time.

“Yeah a few times here and there but…” He ran his fingers loosely up and down her back. “None of those meant anything. But this does. Being with you feels right. It might be corny to say this again, especially right now, but I love you, Katie. I really do.”

She really owed him a response.

“Lance, what I was trying to say before was I’m kind of in love with you too.” Her face flushed as she pushed herself up using his chest so she could look him in the eye. She could still feel him inside her, and it was a little weird talking like this, but she was too lazy to move off of him. “I wanted to tell you earlier when I was apologising, but I chickened out and then you were kind of uh, doing stuff to me so my focus was on something else entirely, but in answer to your confession, yeah. I feel the same.”

Lance smiled happily as he sat up, wrapping his arms loosely around her waist. “I know.”

“Huh?”

“You told me before you passed out. I didn’t get a chance to say it back to you, but you made it clear to me.” He rested his forehead against hers. “Katie, if we ever finish this war for good, if we make it back home safely…”

_Can we take a chance at forever?_

He was deliberately thinking this to show her. And his desires cropped up in his head shortly after he’d mentioned them. There were the obvious wants to have his face between her legs among other sexual wishes like fucking on a picnic in the mountains, but intermingled among them were other soft things that made her breathless. Like holding hands and taking a walk on Varadero beach, Lance regaling her with a story while she cracked up, her laughter punctuated by snorts. With startling clarity, Pidge realised that those daydreams he’d had while on the sightseeing tours had been of _her_.

And the images didn’t stop at that.

There were things like Pidge in a wedding dress. A pregnant Pidge secretly raiding their fridge for pickles to dip into peanut butter. Lance chasing a little girl on the beach and acting like a sea monster while Pidge filmed and laughed. Late night cuddles when they finally had a moment to themselves. Late nights making love…

It was crazy.

And yeah, she knew with all they’d experienced in space, being soldiers in a war that had raged on for years had aged them well past that of their peers mentally. But he was thinking so far ahead.

And yet…

Her heart pounded recklessly at the fact that what he wanted in his future included her. He wanted her as a constant fixture in his life.

And she _wanted_ him to be too.

“Where are you, Pidge?” Lance remarked softly, his lithe touch on her cheek jarring her out of her thoughts and making her blink at him in a stupor. “You’re like a million miles away.”

“…Why do I like you?” She rested her hands at the nape of his neck, so relieved that after all the crazy, stupid crap that had happened through this ordeal on Qiolea, they managed to fix it all. “You’re such a cheesy dork. Absolutely corny.”

“Maybe so, but I’m _your_ cheesy dork,” he said, rubbing soothing circles on her hips with his hand. He was looking at her like his whole world was complete, and it made her heart dance in her chest. “Katie Holt.”

Pidge wrapped her arms around his shoulders, a soft smile playing on her lips. “Mine.”

Their lips met in a slow, heated kiss, and honestly, she could really get used to this.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m actually kind of sad this is over… i spent so much time on this story it doesn’t feel right that i’m never going to open the doc for the story anymore haha… my sappy fucking feelings are very much reflected in the way this chapter came out TT__TT

Pidge’s phone buzzing with an alert for a message and then illuminating the dimmed room roused her from her semi-sleep state. She was pretty sure she had been awake on and off for a bit, but hearing her phone had woken her up permanently.

She felt sticky, a kind of moistness stuck to parts of her that she found a little unpleasant, although it was pretty easy to forget with Lance’s arm wrapped protectively around her waist, the barest hint of a smile on the lips pressed against the back of her neck… and a certain part of him that was very much awake and pressed against her bum. She didn’t know what he was dreaming about, but she had a pretty good idea considering he was kind of humping her just a bit.

Pidge reached over the edge of the bed and checked the message she’d gotten from Shiro. They’d apparently been travelling to Qiolea for the past varga at the request of Chief Advisor Qwurt who sought an audience with them regarding the recent events. They would be touching down soon and he’d suggested that she and Lance prepare themselves and make themselves presentable. She sent him a quick message confirming, and then her stomach gurgled, twisting briefly in a knot.

“Damn… I need some food.”

Her stomach was practically eating itself with its desire for food. Her stomach was grumbling in a way it always did after a lengthy workout, which surprised her considering she hadn’t even done any kind of her usual workouts.

(Although to be fair, what had happened the night before _had_ been something of a workout… and definitely an acrobatic feat in its own right).

She was already up. She might as well start getting ready for her day.

Pidge untangled herself from Lance curled up around her, and though he groaned in displeasure at the slight movement, he let go just enough for her to try to climb out of his bed. She slipped out from the covers and shivered from the cold air. Despite how warm Lance’s shirt felt on her, the chill from the air conditioning was crawling up the opening at her thighs and making goosebumps rise on her skin. As soon as she tried to stand up, her leg cramped and gave out and she dropped to the floor like some bowling ball, making a very loud thud. Pidge cried out, sprawled in a heap on the floor in total shock, and Lance’s eyes blinked open in confusion. He rubbed his eyes as he looked around to try to figure out the source of the commotion.

It was then that she registered the throbbing ache in her groin, the cramps in her hips and the soreness in her abdomen. It was like someone had punched her repeatedly in the same place.

“Pidge?” Lance asked, squinting at her.

“Holy shit…” Pidge breathed out, her legs shaking as she crawled back to the side of the bed. “I think you broke something down there.”

“What are you doing on the floor?” Lance questioned slowly, clearly trying to hold back laughter as he watched her struggle to get back up on his bed.

“I was trying to go get food!” Pidge groaned as she flopped down tiredly on the blanket like a pancake. She grabbed one of his discarded pillows and hit him with it. “Lance, you ass, I can’t walk right. I’m sore as fuck!”

Every time she shifted, her muscles protested the movement. It was still a good kind of ache, but this was pretty embarrassing, especially since Lance was snickering and clearly deriving too much amusement from this.

“You know, I actually take that as a compliment.” Pidge shoved his chest with a scoff, and Lance laughed as he shifted so he could squish closer to her. He slung an arm around her waist and dragged her back onto him with a soft smile. “Hi.”

“Hey…” Pidge rested her chin on her folded arms, her lips pulling up into a sleepy little smile from the steady beating of his heart under her hands. She’d thought their activities the night before had been amazing, but getting to cuddle up with him like this—sticky thighs and shaky legs notwithstanding—on a lazy morning had quickly jumped to the top of her list. “Shiro sent us a message saying we’re on our way back to Qiolea. Some meeting we need to have at Qiolea Castle. We’ll be there soon, I guess since it’s been about a varga.”

Lance smoothed a hand through her hair and settled it on her back. “So I’m guessing some early morning hanky panky is out of the question?”

“Hey, man. Some of us have to recover.” She hummed with a small yawn. “We could play a couple rounds of Phantasm though? We still didn’t settle the score.”

“How much time do we have?” Lance picked up her phone to check the time and then chuckled to himself. “Hey. When did you change this to your wallpaper?”

He flipped the phone around so she could see the image she’d set of them cuddling on the ledge.

Pidge felt her cheeks rouge. “The day we sat on the ledge. In the lab before you stopped by.”

“Yeah, me too.” Lance rubbed her back in even strokes. “Right before I went to the lab with Shiro and uh… thought I saw Keith all over you. I really am sorry about all of that jealousy stuff.”

“I was jealous too, Lance. What matters is we’re okay now.” She leaned up and kissed his chin with a small grin. “More than okay.”

She really was glad all the awkward tension between them was finally gone. This movement had been one of the most stressful ones in her entire time in space, thanks in no small part to not being able to talk to Lance the way she always had. Addressing everything between them and clearing the air had fixed them right up.

“C’mon. If we want to finish the round by the time we land, we should probably play now.” Pidge rose up and sat on her haunches, instantly lamenting the warmth from his body seeping into hers. “Winner takes all, yeah?”

Lance sat up, shaking his head as he kicked the covers away. “No way. I’m not playing against you while you have that mind reading. That’s an unfair advantage.”

“It doesn’t even work that way.”

“So what?” He stretched his arms with a loud yawn and practically groaned from the cracking of his joints. “I’m not taking any chances.”

Pidge rolled her eyes, tugging on the bottom of his boxers to get his attention again. “Well what if we handicapped it somehow to even it out then, ya big baby?”

He eyed her sideways, humming slowly in interest. And ticks later, an image of her handcuffed with a come hither look on her face and a pout on her lips popped into his head. She was still wearing only his shirt and her hair was all sexed up and tousled. Pidge gave him an unimpressed look back and he didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed for it.

“You know,” she drawled, “I knew you were a perv before we got together, but somehow you’ve gotten even worse since then which I didn’t even think was possible considering it’s only been a few varga.”

 “I mean, you’re with me.” Lance snorted, shifting his legs so he was sitting on the edge of his bed and scrubbing a hand through his tangled hair. He glanced at her over his shoulder with a cheeky smile. “So what does that say about you?”

 “That I really need to meet more people,” she snarked, sticking her tongue out when his smirk dropped from his face and his eyes narrowed. She caught a brief sense of danger, but messing with him was far too fun to stop now. “Limited options on this Castle made me choose you. Hey! Maybe I should try to get with one of those Qioleans. I mean think about the angle some of those beaks could hit.”

“Yeah?”

And then Lance turned and before she could try to move out of his reach, he wedging his fingers into her sides, tickling her without warning. Pidge screamed, giggling as she squirmed to escape his grasp. He was relentless, laughing and refusing to stop the onslaught of fingers skimming along her torso.

“Still thinking about meeting a Qiolean?”

“Lance! Okay, I’m sorry!” She gasped for breath, squealing and trying to grab his arms. “My stomach hurts!”

As if on cue, her stomach grumbled pretty violently and they both froze, staring down at it in amusement.

“I think we probably should skip the rematch until tonight.” Lance suggested, standing up from his stoop on the mattress. “Besides, we’ve probably landed by now and I don’t think Shiro will appreciate us being late. Let’s get ready and then get some food in us.”

He leaned down and scooped her up, and Pidge didn’t bother fighting it, honestly pleased that she wouldn’t have to limp around to get to the showers. She wasn’t the type to be pampered or want pampering, but Lance being doting was welling up seriously happy feelings in her.  A movement of struggle and they’d finally found their stride again, the way they had been before this whole mess had begun.

And she was glad for it.

 

…

 

“Do the Qioleans just not respect our time or something?” Allura growled in annoyance, for the third time in a row rearranging the train of her dress where it trailed on the floor. “We’ve been seated for damn near half a varga and the chief advisor has yet to arrive.”

Pidge definitely understood her frustration. They’d been ushered to a small meeting hall and seated with refreshments, but the more time passed without the chief advisor coming for the meeting _she_ had called them for, the more irate they’d all grown.

“Honestly… after all the shit they’ve put us through, you would think they’d put in more effort to kiss our asses or something,” Keith groused with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Was it really necessary for us all to be here?” Lance asked, and for the third time in a row, Pidge swatted his hand away from her lap under the table. She knew he was only complaining because she’d gotten him riled up in the shower and left him high and dry and now he wanted to get her back. “Why not just you and Allura, Shiro?”

Shiro sighed in exhaustion. “I understand you all have your own agendas today, but after the most recent incident, we’re not taking any chances by separating us all. Trust me. I don’t want to be here any more than you do, but we need to resolve this Qiolea situation before we continue on our mission.”

_Goddamn. I **really** need to get laid…_

“Keith volunteers…” Pidge muttered under her breath just low enough that only the people closest to her could hear, but when Keith glanced at her in confusion, she waved off his look with a quick smile.

“By the way…” Allura mused, an amused twinkle dancing in her stormy eyes. “Is that a hickle I see on your neck, Pidge?”

“Hickie,” Hunk corrected with a grin, and Pidge slapped her hand to her neck in mortification, “and why yes it is.”

_Definitely not the worst place I put a love bite on you last night, Pidge._

She shot Lance a dirty look when he gave her a roguish, obscene grin and very deliberately squeezed her upper thigh. Everyone caught the look he gave her and aside from Shiro looking a little disturbed, the rest all gave each other knowing looks.

With a sigh, Keith handed over a couple of GAC from his pouch and dropped them in Hunk’s hand.

Pidge didn’t get a chance to ask them what the hell they’d bet on exactly when the doors of the meeting hall suddenly burst open and Chief Advisor Qwurt walked in, her head held high and the ornate décor of colourful feathers on her head artfully arranged in a puffed up, high hairdo reminiscent of those white powdered wigs in historical films. Qwurt was holding a file and behind her, three guards pushed full crates in carts to the front of the room. They all started to stand in a sign of reverence, but she lifted her hand to stop them.

“Please do stay seated,” she stated with hardly a look at any of them except Shiro. “This won’t be long. My apologies for my tardiness. I had to do my hair.”

Pidge forced herself not to roll her eyes. No matter how different some of the advisors were from King Qylt, they were all just as vain. It seemed to be a common theme amongst the citizens of Qiolea.

“It’s no problem at all,” Allura responded, her million watt smile firmly on her face. The sarcastic edge to her voice would be easily missed by someone who wasn’t accustomed to understanding Allura’s verbal inflections. “We didn’t have any matters to attend to today.”

Shiro gave Allura a subtle admonishing look, though he looked amused. “I think considering the time, it would be best if we just cut to the chase. Why did you call us in for this meeting? And we were hoping to discuss the events of the attack on your castle and what consequences are to come from this.”

“Hmmm, well, yes. I suppose _you_ have earned access to that information.” She fluffed up her coat a bit before settling on the grand chair at the head of the room. Pidge shared a look with Hunk and they both made a subtle face like they were gagging. She was clearly making eyes at Shiro, if the dark look slowly growing on Keith’s face was any indication. “In these crates are all the Galra enhanced weaponry and experiments Qylt has been commissioning. I have spoken to my fellow advisors and we have decided this era of Qiolea is no more. We were once a proud, great planet on our own with our own capabilities and there is no need for us to collude with the likes of the Galra, a far inferior species, not to mention quite hideous to look at. Even more hideous than some of you Terrans.”

“What would you like us to do with them?” Shiro questioned, ignoring her statements entirely, though a frown marred his brows.

“I don’t care,” Chief Advisor Qwurt responded flippantly, while moving one her strands of long feather hair out of her face. “Do what you want with them. I don’t want them on my planet.”

Pidge sighed. So she likened them to a recycling bin, essentially.

“I suppose we could give them to Ryner on Olkarion to study and possibly discover new, more productive uses for them,” Allura responded, glancing at Shiro a bit tiredly. “Technology like this would be safer in a location where they can probably deal with the dangerous aspects more safely.”

“And I can take a few and dismantle them with Pidge in the lab to save for parts,” Hunk suggested.

Shiro nodded. “That sounds like a good plan.”

“There is also this.” The chief advisor tossed the file in her hands on the table. “I keep a physical backup of all our database information, so here is all we have on that smog weapon that Galra commander wanted us to construct. I refuse to be held responsible for any possible atrocities committed with this weapon in the future, so I’m relinquishing all I know about it. Consider it my thanks for saving our castle. We owe you nothing now, and anything that happens with that weapon, we will take no responsibility.”

Pidge picked up the file with her eyes a bit wide and flipped through the pages, skimming what she could recognise of the info with a brewing sense of excitement. This was the information she’d been trying to hack before the sentry completely fucked up the computer. This was _perfect_. They could use it to make the antidote more quickly, plus with all the ingredients spelled out, it wouldn’t be hard to construct and mass produce a potent antidote if the smog ever truly began to be used by the Galra.

“Thank you. We truly appreciate the gesture,” Allura said honestly, her own face pulled in a small expression of shock. “If you don’t mind me asking, what will your kingdom do now?”

“You mean now that Qylt has been revealed a traitor to his people and too cowardly to be a king?” Qwurt sniffed primly, her expression pinched in distaste as she eyed Allura. “Qylt has been imprisoned for high treason against Qiolea. In about a movement, we will be putting a new monarch into power. And Qylt will be made unable to lead the kingdom anymore.”

Allura clicked her tongue just inaudibly enough that no one could hear her unless they were looking for it.

_They should just fry him like that fried chicken thing Hunk keeps telling me about._

Pidge folded her lips in fast to keep from laughing, just barely stopping her snort from escaping her lips.

“I invited you to this meeting because we are hosting another gala tonight. We do not want our citizens to believe that anything is amiss in our castle, so Qylt will be in attendance as king, although we have already stripped him formally of his title.”

“I understand. Suspicions of unrest could lead to a coup, especially in a time of turmoil like this.”

“Yes well. Our previous king’s actions have angered quite a few noble families who might try to take power, so we are attempting to create the illusion of stability. The last thing we need is an uprising by some lowlife commoner attempting to usurp power,” she said, addressing Shiro only with a charming smile, despite the fact that Allura was speaking to her. “I would like to show an illusion of peace, therefore, as leader of a group advocating peace, you must attend. I hope to see you there.”

“I appreciate the invitation,” Shiro responded in a measured tone, “but after the fight with the Galra, I wouldn’t feel comfortable attending on my own as a paladin of Voltron.”

“I suppose you’re justified in that reasoning,” Qwurt said at length, though her face pinched up in that disgruntled way it did when she was clearly displeased with something. “And for some reason, the rest of you lot are very well liked amongst our common citizens, so I suppose that the rest of you must attend as well. You men, see to it that the weapons are transferred to their dwelling.”

Without so much another word or a word of farewell, she rose from the chair and walked gracefully out of the meeting room. They stared after her, blinking at the abrupt departure.

“Is this really such a good idea? You know, letting them _make_ Qylt unable to rule?” Hunk shivered. “I keep thinking they’re going to rip out all his prettiest feathers and make novelty quill pens out of them and sell them for super cheap.”

Lance nodded. “Or like, dip him in a vat of hot oil.”

Shiro gave them both disdainful looks for the jokes. “How Qiolea decides to run the politics of their kingdom is none of our business as long as they are not actively seeking to harm their citizens or other planets.”

“So we’re actually going to this gala?” Keith groaned.

“Yeah. I kind of just want to get off this planet already,” Pidge added, playing with the fingers of Lance’s hand on her lap. “We’ve got work to do with this smog thing.”

“We’ll get to it,” Shiro promised.

“Besides, it’ll be a show of good faith,” Allura piped up. “Believe me. I want to put this whole mess behind me as well, but this is as close a method as we can show that we have reached some sort of consensus. Plus, I intend to use tonight as a way to try to convince some of the advisors to join the alliance as an informant for Galra activity. This planet is still fairly close to what we believe is a beacon of communication for the insurgents.”

“Then it’s settled. We’ll take care of getting the weapon out of you Pidge, and if everything goes well, we’ll go to the gala.”

She swallowed. “Right.”

 

…

 

“Are you going to miss being able to read people’s minds?” Hunk asked her, his voice coming out muffled as he tinkered inside the hollow hole of the artificial brain. She watched him as he attached the fake network of nerves to create some sort of artificial synapse. “It’s like a superpower almost.”

“Kind of, I guess.” It’d been in her head for so long she’d grown accustomed to hearing people’s occasional thoughts. Feeling the intensity of their emotions wasn’t necessarily pleasant, but knowing what was going through their minds came in handy in its own small ways. “Not going to miss the gross stuff though…”

Hunk laughed. “Can’t imagine what sort of stuff you saw in my head.”

“Trust me, Hunk. You have the least to worry about.”

Keith on the other hand?

She owned him now.

Pidge went back to the culture media she was tampering with, trying to find a proper balance that would make its chemical composition as close to her cerebrospinal fluid as possible. The only problem was how it interacted with the fake blood, causing it to aggregate which meant something was wrong but she couldn’t figure out what.

From pretty much the moment they’d returned from the meeting, Pidge and Hunk had locked themselves away in the lab with Coran, working their asses off to get their work done while Allura went with Lance to go pick up suits and dresses since they’d all pretty much destroyed theirs in the battle in the castle. Thanks to the files Chief Advisor Qwurt had given them, Coran was able to speed through the process to make an immediate antidote for Pidge to take. He’d finished up in record time and ran off to his med lab to test the finished product on the samples of her fluid to make sure it would work.

She and Hunk were making progress too, but it was a little slower since they had to make an actual functioning brain. While the artificial brain part wasn’t necessarily _hard_ , she and Hunk didn’t know what specific requirements needed to be incorporated in order to make this smog weapon function in the fake brain. She figured a fluid and medium rich in nutrients that travelled was a requirement. Definitely fake blood with glucose of some sort was needed. And they pretty much knew a system of nerves had to be available, since the weapon triggered control of her limbs.

But the rest was anyone’s guess so they’d decided to incorporate pretty much everything they could which would take time. Neither of them wanted to do the biology part, but Hunk had beaten her at a coin toss so he got to do the fun mechanical construction and she was left wallowing in biochemical misery.

Going about it was going to be fairly difficult, but while Pidge had been with Lance all night, Hunk had jotted out some notes on how to construct the brain that were helpful. From what she could see of the little area he’d set up in the lab, he’d had some pretty great success so far.

“You’re working awfully hard, Pidge,” Hunk mused as he pulled his head out of the cavern to observe one of the holographic diagrams they’d created to map what they would have to do.

“We have a lot to do.”

“I know… I just figured you’d probably need the rest today or something. You’re not doing a very good job of hiding that limp. So I can only imagine how long your night was.”

Pidge’s cheeks flushed heavily when Hunk gave her a very obvious teasing grin. She groaned and turned her back to him, knowing this wouldn’t be something her friends would leave her alone about until they found the next situation of interest that would pique their interests.

“No matter what occurred last night,” she finally responded tightly, “we’ve got a job to complete. So I can’t just take a break like that.”

Although she couldn’t lie that she wouldn’t have minded spending the day hanging out with Lance or lazing about in his room. It was weird. She’d always loved hanging out with him, but now that they were official, she pretty much wanted to spend every second with him. But they did have to fix up space first and get all that stuff out of the way before they could devote time in full to their newfound romantic relationship. Besides…

They were taking a chance at forever so they had lots of time.

A renewed blush dusted her cheeks and she chewed on her lower lip to keep that gooey smile she was sure was building from overtaking her face.

“Lance told me you two _made love_ ,” Hunk sighed dramatically, grabbing an odd Altean wrench and attaching a long tube for the spinal cord.

“Hunk,” Pidge begged him, “can we please not talk about this? Not now, at least? This is all still very new and I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that we did… uh… _that_.”

(Multiple times. Multiple ways.)

Hunk’s grin was from ear to ear. “You’re so cute, Pidge. I’m happy you guys are finally with each other. The pining and all the tension was getting excruciating.”

“I’m happy we’re finally together too,” Lance’s voice sounded from the doorway, and Pidge and Hunk both turned to him where he entered. “You guys at a good stopping point? Coran said he hit a breakthrough in the antidote and is preparing a dosage for Pidge.”

“Oh… so he’s ready for me to take the antidote?”

She’d thought the moment would make her ecstatic, but the closer she approached losing her ability, the more reluctant she became. It really wasn’t safe for her to keep it in her system, but she’d gotten a bit attached to the annoying little bugger.

“Yeah. I came here to get you guys. Thought Keith would be here with you.” Lance walked up to her, snaking his arms around her from behind and giving her a soft kiss on the cheek before resting his chin on her shoulder. “I’ve been dying to see you all afternoon. I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” she said quietly, leaning into his embrace.

“Awww… hashtag: relationship goals.” Hunk gushed, his hands on his heart as he stepped down from the step ladder and tossed his tools back in the toolkit on his preferred lab table. Pidge let out a long suffering sigh that had Lance chuckling in her ear. “But last I checked, Keith was moving the crates of weapons into pods for transport to Olkarion tomorrow with Shiro. They’re probably in the gym sparring now. I’ll go grab them. Meet you guys in the med lab.”

“Alright,” Lance responded as Hunk left the lab.

“Did you just come out of a shower, Lance?”

She always loved the way he smelled afterward. The way he used to be in the past, she’d always kind of expected him to be the type to overdo cologne or something, but all things considered, he kept it pretty chill. And she loved that fresh scent of his soap and the way it clung to his skin.

“Yeah, I got sprayed by some suspicious street vendor.”

“…Sprayed?”

“You don’t want to know…” he growled darkly under his breath, and Pidge was rewarded with a memory of Lance covered in some odd green liquid and Allura dying of laughter nearby. “You seem a little anxious.”

Pidge let out a long breath and rotated in his arms so she could face him. “I am a little disappointed about losing the mind reading, but mostly, I just hope the antidote works. I don’t want to deal with this thing forever. But it’s like, it was so intense when I first had a reaction to it, so I can’t imagine what kind of strong reactions will have to happen in my body to get it out.”

“You’ll be okay. Coran knows what he’s doing.” Lance grinned, leaning down and dropping a little kiss on her nose. “Plus I’ll be right there holding your hand the whole time.”

“Gross…” she drawled. “A clammy hand sticking to mine does not sound like much of a comfort.”

“I give and I give and this is the thanks I get…”

Pidge laughed, shoving against him until he finally let her go. “Move. I need to get this done.”

“You could take care of it later?” Lance yawned and headed over to the diagrams to see what Hunk had been working on. “We need to head to the med bay.”

“I just need five doboshes and I’ll be at a good stopping point.”

“Fine. Five doboshes only.”

Lance sat down on the stool nearby her and she turned around to try to finish up the last of her work on the fake fluid. Admittedly, she did open her mind as much as possible because she kind of wanted to know what was going through his mind when he was just idly sitting by and watching her work, but Lance’s mind was pretty blank.

“I’m curious,” Pidge said at length, swirling the most recent mixture of imitation blood in the flask that she’d made. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever imagined while we were talking?”

“Probably that time you accidentally blew up the lab with Hunk a while ago. Your hair was all messed up and puffy and you looked like a clown.”

“Yeah, I remember…” Pidge glowered at him. Her hair had been completely untameable for a whole quintant. She’d looked like a poodle. “You and Keith wouldn’t stop laughing at me.”

“Oh c’mon. It was kinda funny.” Pidge refused to dignify it with a response. “Well, anyway I was imagining you riding me dressed like a clown. Surprisingly hot. Especially the part where you came and a clown horn sounded. Not my proudest daydream, but you were giving me the cold shoulder at the time so I didn’t have much to work with.”

Pidge cackled, filing away the information to hold on to for future use. “So you have a thing for clowns, huh?”

“Only when they’re you.”

“Not really sure how to take that,” Pidge muttered, and Lance chuckled.

She tested out some more of the artificial blood, analysing the components to make sure the basic properties found in her body lined up with the ones she was trying to make. Once satisfied, Pidge pipetted a drop of imitation blood on a small tray and then dropped some of the imitation CSF on it. It clumped up again, and she scowled as she ran a hand through her hair, frustrated with her lack of progress. What did she have to do to make this work?

She was so enthralled in her work that she almost missed the heat of a gaze on her back until she felt the pinpricks of Lance’s arousal in her head. She glanced over her shoulder in confusion, half expecting him to have a hand down his pants or something, but he was sitting on his stool, just watching her with this small smile that had her stomach fluttering.

“What’s with that look?”

“You are so fucking hot right now,” Lance murmured, standing up and walking over to her.

“I’m covered in grease and chemicals,” Pidge remarked dryly while gesturing to her current messy appearance.

It was clearly not a deterrent. Despite her small protests, he picked her up and deposited her on a lab table not occupied by her experiments. Lance stood between her legs, his hands teasing the skin above her sweatpants as he nuzzled her neck.

“Lance, I have work to finish,” she whined, though she wasn’t particularly making an effort to keep him away. Her body was clearly welcoming the break, if her thrumming heart and the slight coiling in her abdomen was any indication. “You’re so damn weird. I wasn’t even doing anything.”

“I love it when you get all engrossed in your tasks. Look, can you blame me for not being able to keep my hands off you?” He squeezed her waist lightly and gave her an imploring near puppy dog look with his eyes. She hated how effective it was, because for a little bit, she considered putting her work aside for a bit to fool around. “I can finally show the person I love how much they mean to me after our friendship almost ended.”

“Yeah, nice try.” She looped her arms around his shoulders. “I’ve seen into your head before. You’re just a horny fuck.”

“You know, I had a fantasy just like this once,” Lance said in a low voice, ducking his head close to hers. “You were in just a towel. And we had a time limit so we were going at it pretty hard. The sounds you were making…”

Pidge licked her lips, heat crawling between her legs when she met his gaze and saw the blatant heat. It didn’t help that his mind was stuck on one thing and one thing only.

“Fuck it.”

She leaned up as he leaned down, his lips landing on hers, mouth warm and soft. He shifted closer to her, moulding himself to her and she inhaled sharply when he deepened the kiss. His tongue met hers, exploring, and he curled a hand into her hair, tilting her back in the process and enveloping her body with his on the lab table.

This was definitely happening, soreness be damned.

She was more than a little turned on, and she moaned a bit when his crotch made contact with hers and he made no attempts to even hide the fact that he was more than a little turned on too. Heat travelled through her body and she wrapped her legs around his waist, trying to get as close as possible as she could to him. Lance groaned in her mouth when she arched her hips up, and she couldn’t help the small smile on her lips when he exhaled shakily.

Lance pulled back the slightest, lips ghosting over hers with a smile as he slowly stroked one of her thighs.

“Lance? Pidge? We’ve been waiting in the med lab for a—”

Keith walked in and stopped talking abruptly, his face contorting into a look of repulsion as soon as he saw them. Pidge went a little wide eyed, her face going red very fast, but Lance cracked up. She pushed on his shoulders to get off of her and he backed off, helping her sit up so she could hop off the table.

“You know? This is exactly how my fantasy ended too…” Lance snickered.

“At least put a sock on the door or something next time! I’m blind!”

_Maybe we should clean **all** counters with bleach. Who knows where these two may have put their bodily fluids…_

Pidge’s eyes narrowed. “Oh come off it. As if I haven’t been subjected to your countless and very vivid daydreams of you and—”

“Okay, Pidge.” Keith growled, eyes narrowed right back. “Truce, yeah?”

She gave him a smug little smirk, and Lance looked between the two of them in annoyance.

“You can’t just start a juicy statement like that and not finish it, Pidge. What daydreams? With who?”

“Can you both just hurry up and get to the med bay?” Keith responded with a blush before she could say anything, turning on his heel to head out. “Coran has the antidote ready. And please don’t take any detours.”

“You’re going to tell me, right?” Lance asked, readjusting himself in his jeans as they followed Keith out of the main lab. He looked vaguely uncomfortable walking and she made a mental note to make it up to him sometime that night. “I want to know what dirt you have on him.”

“Maybe if you beat me tonight…” she hummed, leaning against him as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “So, I guess that means you’ll never know~”

She could practically hear him roll his eyes and snorted as they made their way to the med lab.

Pidge wasn’t sure if maybe Lance could feel her trepidation or her worry somehow, but as they were making their way through the corridors, he held her a little tighter, rubbing her arm gently. It wasn’t like she was worried necessarily, but she did have some conflicting feelings about it. In the end though, she was more comfortable getting rid of it. She would always be reminded of that all-encompassing fear of nearly killing Lance and being unable to move her own body, and that was enough of a reminder for her to grow more prepared to lose the mind reading.

In the end, it wasn’t worth keeping it when possibly killing her friends was a potential alternative.

When they got to the med bay, the others were waiting for her by one of the examination tables, Coran dressed in full Earth surgeon’s gear and holding one of those giant needles that he’d used to draw out her CSF. Lance stared at him horrified and Hunk looked queasy as all hell.

Pidge climbed up on the table and let out the deep breath she’d been holding. Lance slipped his hand into hers and intertwined their fingers. He gave her a supportive squeeze and she gave him a return grateful smile in thanks.

“How do you feel, Pidge?” Shiro asked gently, shifting one of the monitors so that it was covering her vital signs. The other x-ray monitor, he moved beside her back which once aligned, made it possible to see the layers of her spinal cord.

“Fine, I guess.” She eyed Coran’s needle with a raised brow. “As long as he doesn’t stick that inside me _without_ anaesthetic. Don’t you have any more of those pills?”

He gave her an apologetic look. “While I would absolutely love to give you any anaesthetic, unfortunately this antidote reacted badly to all of them so I’m afraid you’ll have to go without, Number 5. If I had more time, I could try to make a different version, but unfortunately, that could take much longer and we need to get this out of you now.”

“We’re all right here, Pidge,” Allura reassured her. “Just focus on us and I promise you it won’t hurt as bad as you think.”

She nodded, though she let out a shaky breath when Shiro moved behind her, holding up the back part of her shirt so Coran could access her spine. Keith put a consoling hand on her shoulder while Hunk took her other hand, and Allura squatted in front of her with a gentle, encouraging smile on her face.

Coran cleaned the area with a prep pad and then located the point he would need to put the needle with his fingers. Pidge closed her eyes and squeezed their hands tightly when the sting of the needle pierced through her skin. She could feel it sliding through her skin and into her muscles and she inhaled sharply, breathing in and out deeply as she tried to relax. It wasn’t horribly painful, but it definitely felt like an unpleasant discomfort of growing pain and she kind of felt like crying. Lance’s other hand came up to cradle her cheek and he stroked her gently with his thumb.

“This antidote won’t be able to eradicate the weapon immediately, but it’ll help it leave your system gradually,” Coran explained while he emptied the antidote into her spine. She definitely felt the stream of odd liquid and cringed. “It will leave your system the same way most wastes are expelled.”

“It’s essentially a laxative for your kidneys, I guess, so when it’s time, you’ll probably have to pee a lot,” Hunk offered. “He tried to make it in the least uncomfortable way for you possible. This is the only thing we could think of because it’s so latched on to you.”

That was fine by her.

Pidge let out a small whimper of pain when Coran finally started to pull the needle out of her back. The shifting of her joints and muscles under the surface of her skin was completely unpleasant and she nearly shouted out while he cleaned off the painful wound again and put a bandage on her.

She swallowed hard. “I… I need a little breathing room.”

They all let go of her, backing away to give her some space while she worked on not focusing on that odd heat crawling up her back.

“Pidge?” Lance asked softly, a worried look on his face much like the ones on everyone else’s. “You feel anything?”

At first she didn’t, but then her throat closed up a bit and she rubbed at it as her breathing went hoarse. She couldn’t breathe right. She rasped a bit, trying to pull in more air, but her throat wasn’t working right.

Not this again.

Her heart started beating faster, a small sense of dread settling in as she choked on the next breath she took. Pidge shook her head slowly, opening bleary, tear-filled eyes to look at her companions and noticing the horrified looks growing on their faces. Her lips had turned hot pink again and she hunched over, barely hearing the shouts of her name as she focused on trying to take in the little bits of breath she could.

She was sure she was about to suffocate on air again, that she would feel that terrifying fire of her lungs unable to take in air, but in the next second, the feeling faded, her throat opened up to allow her to breathe and her lungs cried out in joy when air filled them. Pidge took in a huge gulp of air and sat up wide eyed in surprise, a desperate relief passing through her. From the looks on all their faces, they were feeling the same way. Lance was at her side immediately, holding her face and checking to make sure she was okay.

“Oh my God…” She wrapped her arms around him, leaning into him and relishing in the comfort of his scent. “That was horrible.”

But at least she could breathe, even though her spine still felt like it was on fire.

Lance kissed the top of her head, partially burrowing his face in her hair. “At least nothing happened to you this time. For once.”

“What now?” Allura asked, watching the way the weapon had grown stagnant on the screen monitoring her body.

“Now we wait. Four varga minimum, eight varga maximum,” Coran said, taking off his gloves and putting all the things he’d used in the proper disposal bins. “We’ll monitor you now and then once again after the gala and by the next quintant, it should be completely out of your system!”

“That means no more blackmail,” Keith pointed out, crossing his arms in front of his chest and giving Pidge a narrowed eyed look.

“Just because I won’t be able to see your new thoughts anymore doesn’t mean I’ll forget the old stuff I _did_ see, Keith.” She gave him an evil grin when she pulled away from Lance. “I own your ass now.”

“I thought we were friends, Pidge,” Keith droned, his expression hardly changing.

“You should have thought of that before you kept teasing me about Lance all the time.”

“Let’s get you in a pod, Pidge,” Shiro said, chuckling in amusement as he walked over to help her stand up so she could get in one of the cryopods for her checkup. “We’ve only got a few varga before the gala is starting and I want to make sure you have a chance to rest beforehand.”

She saluted him. “Yessir, O captain, my captain!”

Shiro let out a long breath in exhaustion.

 

…

 

All things considered, the gala was actually not bad.

Pidge had to decline dances for the most part since the antidote was still working its effect and too much movement for prolonged periods of time made her spine hurt. All her nerves were being affected, like they were all on fire, and her whole body felt like it was tingling or like it could give out at any second. The heat going up and down her back and occasionally in her head didn’t help and so Pidge had spent her time lounging by the side with Keith, her friends coming up to check on her every once in a while.

At least her dress was not some poofy monstrosity this time.

“Do make sure to try the food. Our chef tells me he had ample instruction from the yellow paladin. I’m impressed,” Qwurt said, although the pinched look on her face made it seem like it was like chewing glass to get that statement out. Hunk, bless his heart, still puffed up happily at the compliment. “I would like to thank you for attending our gala. Isn’t that right, Qylt?”

The birdman beside her looked put out. “At least address me by the title of king for tonight!”

“Shut your mouth, you damned insolent fool.”

Shiro chuckled nervously, though he kept his expression as cordial as possible. “If you need Team Voltron around a little longer to help facilitate the process of peace or even for protection against any possible Galra retaliation, we would be happy to assist, Chief Advisor.”

“I’d rather you didn’t. We do have our pride afterall…” She put a hand on Shiro’s arm and smiled with half-lidded eyes, her gaze on the front of his pants. “Although, I really wouldn’t mind _your_ assistance in other areas. And please. Call me Qwurt.”

_I wonder if his pubic hair grows white like his forelock…_

Pidge turned sideways quickly, partially hiding behind Hunk as she started laughing under her breath. Hunk eyed her in confusion, Keith looked murderous, and Shiro’s expression went from cordial to panicked in an instant. If they only knew what the chief advisor was imagining doing with him. Apparently, she had the same binding fetishes that Coran did.

(And speaking of Coran, last she’d seen him, he was talking to the orgasm sheep bleating guy but they had both disappeared).

“Uhh…umm…” Shiro stammered a bit awkwardly and then cleared his throat. “While I, uh, appreciate the offer—”

“He’s taken,” Keith said with a practically possessive growl, the tips of his ears a bit red as he interrupted and linked his arm with Shiro’s to press himself up against his side. “You got a problem with that?”

Qwurt blinked at them in disinterest, before she humphed and turned away, grabbing Qylt by the scruff of his neck in the process.

“I suppose not.” She looked annoyed though. “I must see to other matters of our castle’s reconstruction. Enjoy the gala. It is in your honour after all.”

After Qwurt walked away, Pidge finally let out the laugh she’d been holding and doubled over in cackles punctuated by snorts. Keith gave her an annoyed scowl.

“Thank you for lying to her, Keith. I appreciate the save,” Shiro said gratefully with a sigh of relief. “I never know how to respond to the advances.”

“No problem,” Keith muttered, his eyes seemingly on the ground, but when Pidge observed him more closely, he was staring at Shiro’s crotch too. “It’s what anyone would have done.”

She knew why. Allura and Lance hadn’t been able to find a bigger size for Shiro’s suit so his pants were just the slightest bit too tight and she could _just_ make out the outline of what he had to offer. (Quite a worthy package). She suspected most people interested in him at the gala really liked what they were seeing and Keith was no exception. The way the pants moulded to his ass and legs made his legs look like they’d been sculpted by Greek gods themselves.

_I want to rip your pants off and drain you._

Pidge rolled her eyes. Why was it that even though her mindreading was much weakened that Keith’s stupid daydream still popped up in her head uninhibited and completely clear?

Although to his credit, this one was a little more tasteful compared to some others. Keith dragged Shiro away from the gala and they snuck off to the throne room and had some disrespectful as fuck lap sex on the seat of the king’s throne. Keith was riding Shiro like some demented cowgirl, calling him My Liege and Your Highness and bouncing on his lap, his legs on Shiro’s shoulders while Shiro gripped him and jerked him off in sharp strokes.

(Well, it _was_ tasteful until the end bit where Keith turned into a geyser and his fuckjuice splattered on both their faces).

That was it.

Keith had officially upended Lance’s seat as Most Pervy Paladin.

“I appreciate it nonetheless. Save me a dance for later, Keith.” Shiro walked away when Allura called him over from a distance to dance to save her from King Qylt. “Might be a good idea to keep up the charade to convince the other diplomats too.”

Keith let out a long suffering sigh under his breath. “What have I done…”

“Good luck.” Hunk had an empathetic smile on his lips as he set a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Shiro is as oblivious as Pidge. Maybe more so.”

So clearly Hunk knew about Keith’s feelings for Shiro now. She kind of liked that his attention had been diverted from her and Lance to Keith’s issues. That meant she wouldn’t be the main topic of interest for the Gossip Society anymore.

Hunk excused himself shortly after to go talk to the group of chefs eagerly awaiting his expertise again, and Pidge leaned against the pillar she and Keith were standing nearby, her body feeling a sharp flash of heat for a moment that left her needing to wait out the wave.

“Still not going to dance, Keith?” she questioned playfully, glancing up at him. “Don’t you think you should get some practice in so you don’t trod all over Shiro’s toes like a herd elephant? Although… that would be something pretty funny to watch.”

“Yeah… You know what else is pretty funny?” he intoned with a quirked brow. “Being able to read someone’s mind and still losing a sparring match against them fourteen nil.”

“Okay.” Pidge nodded, a slow smile growing on her face. “All hail ye king of snark.”

She did a small little curtsy at him, and Keith rolled his eyes, though his lips were twitching like he wanted to smile.

They watched the crowd of people at the gala. Allura was politely fending off Qylt’s interest by using Shiro, though the increasing frustration in her gaze told Pidge very soon she would be losing her patience. Hunk was having a great time laughing with the other chefs, telling some story that had them watching him with stars in their eyes. Nearby them, one of Lance’s conversation partners was giggling loudly, and Pidge wondered how much longer he’d be mingling with court ladies and diplomats. She wasn’t that bothered—Allura had made sure to check with her to see if Pidge was okay with Allura asking Lance to butter them up again—but she wanted some time with him too, especially since he looked very handsome in his suit and she just knew these Qiolean bitches wanted to jump his bones.

As if feeling the weight of her gaze on him, Lance looked over the laughing bird-woman’s head and made eye contact with Pidge. That fake flirtatious expression on his face went soft and warm as he smiled at her. She couldn’t help her own smile, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and then sticking her tongue out at him. He rose a brow, clearly amused by it. It made Pidge feel giddy.

Everything felt right again in space.

“I’m glad you two are finally together, but I can’t help but feel like the rest of us are all about to suffer for it,” Keith remarked, and Pidge turned and glanced at him. “I thought you two were bad when you were pining for each other and fighting all the time, but I was clearly mistaken. Somehow, I get the feeling this won’t be the last time I’ll end up walking in on you guys.”

Pidge winced at the reminder of the awkward situation. “Yeah, sorry you saw that. But on the plus side, if you had walked in a dobosh later, it would have been a much different scene.”

Keith gave her a dry look. “Would be nicer if that wasn’t a possibility in the first place, but I guess if I were in you guys’ place, I’d do the same.”

She poked him. “Yeah. I _know_ you would, Keith.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” he blocked her offending finger from finding its way to his ribs, “I’m proud of you, Pidge. It took our intervention at first, but you figured out the rest in your way and fixed it all. I know it must have made you uncomfortable stepping out of your comfort zone of analysing everything, but I’m glad you took my advice.”

“Awww Keith.” Pidge gushed, reaching up on her toes to ruffle his mullet. “You’re proud of me?”

“I am.” He gave her a genuine smile, his eyes lighting up with genuine pride. “I’m happy you guys made it after all you’ve been through.”

“Thanks, Keith,” Pidge said honestly. “Now I just need you to go after Shiro so you can be happy too.”

“We’ll see.” But the tone with which he’d said that made it clear to her that he wouldn’t be doing a damn thing.

“Just jump in head first, Keith~” she singsonged. “Just go right up to him and tell him: ‘ _oh, Shiro. I want to rip your pants off and drain you’_.”

Keith stared at her blankly for a few ticks. “I don’t think we can be friends anymore, Pidge.”

She snorted, and shortly after, she saw Lance excuse himself from his conversation and head over to them. Pidge straightened up happily when he approached, pleased he was finally taking a break from the flirting.

“Hey. Mind if I steal her for a tick?” Lance held out his hand to her to dance. “Last time you spent the entire time hiding and running from me.”

Her cheeks burst into colour. “I wasn’t hiding from you!”

“Yeah, she was,” Keith responded, not reacting at all when she flipped him off. “She’s all yours. She was leaning pretty heavily on the pillar, so don’t push her too much. And maybe don’t run off to go fuck on tables or countertops or something. We don’t want to get executed here for an avoidable faux pas.”

As Keith sauntered off, Pidge glared after him, though Lance was still clearly amused about the fact that Keith had walked in on them.

Then Lance spun her elaborately and pulled her into his arms. He guided them slowly over to the throng of other couples waltzing, one hand clasped around hers and the other sliding down her back until it settled on her ass. He rocked them slowly, and Pidge held on to him with a serene smile on her face.

“See? Not so bad dancing with me, is it?”

“Your hand is wandering in an inappropriate location, Lance.” She rested her cheek against his chest, her legs fighting her motions, but he had her pretty well supported so she wasn’t worried that her legs might give out and she’d land on the floor. “I’m giving you a free pass because you’re cute. But I think you should pamper me a bit tonight for this transgression.”

“No amount of flattery will make me go easy on you when we play tonight. Not doing any chores sounds pretty damn good to me.”

“It’s laughable that you think you can win against me,” Pidge drawled as she looked back up at him. “I’ve seen into your head. I know how to mess with you.”

“So do I… I know you love me in a suit.” Lance squeezed her ass with a cheeky grin and Pidge gave him a warning look, though she had to fight not to smile.

“Hands off the merchandise, Lance. The shop is closed for repairs.”

“Or… hear me out. We could sneak off to the throne room?” He waggled his eyebrows, and Pidge shook her head in amusement. “Do some roleplaying? A king and his favourite concubine? Or a queen and her knight, if you want. I’m good either way.”

“…What is it with you guys and that damn throne room?” she muttered.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing.” Pidge let him spin her and then grinned up at him when she was back in his arms. This close to him, it wasn’t hard to feel that he wanted to be close to her all the time too. “When did you realise you wanted to be with me?”

He blinked in surprise at the question.

“I guess… a while before you started dating Joth. It was around the time we had that mission transporting those betrothal flowers to that weird romance planet.” Lance had a slight blush on his cheeks as he glanced up at the crystal chandeliers glittering above their heads. “We had to pretend we were a couple, remember? I thought you wouldn’t want to, but you just went with it, and I realised that at some point, I wasn’t pretending anymore. That I didn’t _want to_ pretend anymore.”

So Keith had been right that it’d been for more than a whole deca-phoeb. Lance had definitely been holding back that long. She really had been insanely oblivious to not to notice in all that time. At least one good thing about the mind reading was that it had brought his feelings for her on her radar in the first place. Who knew how much longer it could have taken before she came to learn of his feelings?

“When did you actually start liking me?” he asked curiously, holding her more closely when she stumbled a bit and then winced. He slowed them down, turning them around in slow, rocking circles. “I mean, I kind of started to get this feeling that it wasn’t one-sided before we even came to Qiolea, but I want to know.”

“I’m not telling you.”

“C’mon, inquiring mind wants to know, hermosa.”

She rolled her eyes, her face flushing the slightest bit. “Okay… honestly? The night we got the Mercury GameFlux at the Terra store.”

“Wait, _what_?” Lance laughed a bit incredulously, his brows shooting up on his forehead. “For three years?! I would never have guessed. You used to act like you hated me.”

“That’s because I’d made it my mission not to let anyone ever find out. Which of course meant Hunk and Keith found out immediately. Plus you liked Allura back then.” Pidge snuggled up closer to him, using him as a crutch since her legs were shaking a bit. “It wasn’t just you going out of your way to help me get the game though. We stayed up all night playing and I fell asleep in your room, but you let me have your bed. And you woke me up with breakfast in the morning. I was a goner.”

“So all those times you hit me or made fun of me was just you acting out because you had a big ol’ fucking crush on me?” Lance smirked, something a little smug that told her he would be bringing this up all the time. “You’re so cute, Katie.”

“Shut up…” Pidge groaned, hiding her face in his chest. “I didn’t know how to deal with my feelings.”

“Wow, it really took us this long to finally figure us out, huh...”

“Yeah, no kidding…” she snorted, shifting to wrap both arms around his neck.

“At least we’ll have all the time in the world to make up for it,” Lance said, gently running a hand up and down her side.

She smiled up at him, her stomach fluttering with happy butterflies when he cupped her cheek and gave her a gentle kiss on her forehead. The affection in his mind was nothing but a faint, distant throbbing she could barely read, but knowing he was feeling it was still nice.

She was going to miss the convenience of feeling everyone’s thoughts in her heads to get her some easy answers. It had been somewhat fun in some small ways while it lasted, but at the end of the day, she hadn’t been very good at understanding what she was seeing anyway. 

And really, what good did she have for it now when she’d already resolved everything with Lance? Through all these years, she’d never needed to see into his mind before, and she certainly didn’t believe she would need it now.

“Can you guess what’s on my mind?” Lance murmured, his lips brushing against her temple.

“Something perverted for sure…”

Lance chuckled, pulling her even closer to him by the waist and pressing another tender kiss on her forehead, his fingers combing through her hair slowly. He pulled back, and the genuine, warm look he gave her was something she’d never seen on his face directed at anyone else. It was just for her, a smile so full of love, his soft blue eyes shining with affection, the emotion in his gaze so intense, Pidge didn’t even need to feel it in his mind to know what he meant by it.

He rested his forehead against hers, cradling her close to him and rocking her slowly. Pidge teased the hair at the nape of his neck, meeting his lips in a slow kiss that had her feeling short of breath, her heart dancing in her chest from the all-encompassing happiness coursing through her veins.

She really loved Lance.

And Lance loved her too.

And well… it didn’t take a mind reader to understand that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER~ ~~well, except Keith kinda lmao…~~
> 
> welp, this has been super fun to write and i appreciate all of you for your support throughout and all the shits <333 bisous all around and thanks for reading this goofy nightmare!!! ^^


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